Learning Center & Technical Lexicon

Understand the modern web — from edge physics to ownership rights

Explore technical definitions, common questions, step-by-step guides, and honest competitor economics. Learn how Anycast routing, TTFB, Schema.org graphs, and wholesale domain pricing actually work.

Core Technical Definitions (Wiki Lexicon)

Unbiased, mechanical definitions explaining network latency, routing protocols, and machine-readable data standards.

Core Web Vitals

What is Time to First Byte (TTFB) — the thresholds, and what the number is not

Time to First Byte measures the latency from a browser's initial request to the arrival of the first byte of HTML. Why sub-50ms TTFB is essential for search rankings and AI crawler indexing.

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Global Infrastructure

What is Anycast DNS — how global edge routing eliminates latency

Anycast routing allows multiple physical servers worldwide to share a single IP address, routing website visitors to the nearest datacenter automatically.

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FAQ & Q&A Schema

What is FAQ schema — and why the rich result is gone

FAQPage pairs a question with its answer so a machine can read the pair. Here is the format, the two dates that changed what it buys, and what the markup is still worth.

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Schema.org Standard

What is a local business schema? LocalBusiness Schema markup, and what it has to contain

Schema.org LocalBusiness structured data states your address, geo-coordinates, hours and certifications in a form a machine can lift, built from the same details the page already shows.

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AI Search & GEO

AI SEO, GEO and AEO: the same practice under three names

AI SEO is what most people call it; GEO and AEO are the precise names. How an AI answer engine decides to cite you, what actually moves a citation, and what is only a well-meant claim.

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Platform Architecture

What is a SiteSpec — the JSON document a site actually is

A SiteSpec is the declarative JSON a site compiles from: pages, theme, sections, collections, locales. One document, every renderer, and portability that is a compile rather than a rescue.

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Expiry & Recovery

What is the ICANN ERRP — the policy that governs what happens when a domain expires

The Expired Registration Recovery Policy is the rulebook registrars must follow when a name lapses: the notices, the grace periods, the deletion, and the three fees that have to be published before you register.

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AI Agent Protocol

What is llms.txt — the proposal, the format, and what the evidence says about it

llms.txt is a proposed Markdown index at your site root that points agents at the pages worth reading. Here is the format, what version 2 changed, and what two large studies found about whether it earns citations.

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Managed Hosting

What is managed website hosting — and what it costs in year two

Managed hosting is the arrangement where the host runs the machine. What it takes on, what the second year costs, and what a platform that owns the document does differently.

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Filing & Jurisdiction

ICP filing (网站备案): what it is, and when your site actually needs it

Filing is an administrative step a site takes before a mainland server serves it to the public. It costs nothing. Whether you need it depends on one thing only: where the site is served from.

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Business Models

What is a website as a service — and what it costs in year two

WaaS is an agency business model, not a product. Here are the four ways to get a website, what each one leaves you with, what the audited renewal rates look like in year two, and what leaving costs.

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High-Intent Q&A & Answer Engine Answers

Factual answers to high-friction industry questions about domain ownership, renewal price spikes, and AI search indexing.

Domain Governance

Do I own my custom domain on Wix or Squarespace — and how do transfers work?

Understanding the legal separation between your domain name registration and your website builder host: ICANN ownership rights, 60-day transfer locks, and EPP codes.

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Pricing Transparency

Why do website builders increase renewal prices by 2x to 4x after year one?

The economics of introductory teaser rates: prepay term roll-offs, bundled free domain markups, and how to audit your 5-year total cost of ownership.

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Search Quality

Can AI-generated websites rank on Google — what search guidelines actually say

Google Search Central evaluates content utility, originality, and user experience, not the software used to author it. The technical prerequisites for AI site ranking.

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Price Postures

Cheap web hosting for small business: what it costs in year two

The cheapest list in this market is sorted by the price that stops mattering after month one. Fourteen audited builders, sorted by what the same plan costs in year two, and the three price postures behind them.

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Free Tiers

Website builder free trial: what a free AI website builder actually gives you

A free tier is not a discount. Every builder we have audited, what each free plan grants, and the three things it withholds — your domain, your search results, or the price of year two.

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Architecture

Website builder vs web hosting — understanding the editing layer vs runtime substrate

The critical distinction between where your website is visually designed and where its files physically execute: canvas editors vs. Anycast edge networks.

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Ownership Rights

What happens to my website if I cancel my builder subscription?

The question every builder is asked and almost none answer: what survives the cancellation, what does not, and how long the answer is good for.

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Cost Structure

What does local SEO cost? Local SEO pricing, and the three bills

Three bills, not one: the free profile, the site you can buy once, and the work that repeats every month.

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What It Costs

Website design cost: how much should a website cost in year one and year two?

Year one is the number every quote leads with. Year two is the bill: what 51 audited builders really charge, and what those prices renew at.

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Five-Year Cost

How much is a domain name: how much does a domain cost over five years

The market answers with a band — $10 to $20 a year — and that band describes a .com and very little else. Here is what each popular TLD costs over five years, renewal included.

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Hosting Cost

Web hosting price: what web hosting costs over five years

The market answers with a band — $2 to $10 a month to start, $10 to $20 at renewal — and the number that decides it is what a plan costs over five years, once the term, the domain and the add-ons are in it.

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Do You Need A Server?

Do I need web hosting? The three cases, and the one that is a yes

Every site needs somewhere to serve files from. Whether that is a second subscription depends on whether your site holds state, runs code per request, or has a schedule — and the honest answer is one paragraph.

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Email On A Domain

Website hosting with email: a domain with free email, and what it costs

The free email you get with a domain is usually forwarding, not a mailbox — and the difference between them is most of the bill. Here is what each one is, what it costs over five years, and where the genuinely free mailboxes are.

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No Code, No Lock-In

AI website builder no code: what it means and what it costs

Nobody writes the code, so every one of these tools does the same thing. What differs is what you keep afterwards — and that is the part the phrase rounds off.

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Do You Need One?

AI website builder for small business: when you need one, and when you don't

The most-upvoted answer to this question is not a builder — it is to write the site yourself. That answer is right more often than the roundups suggest, so it comes first.

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Monthly Retainers

Monthly website maintenance: what a website care plan costs, and when you don't need it

The quoted price measures what the site is, not what the work is. Here is what the market charges, what the monthly actually buys, and when the honest answer is that you do not need one.

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Month Two

AI website builder pricing: what an AI website builder costs, and what month two finds

Three tools, three published price lists, and three free tiers that each hide a different gate. What an AI-built site costs is the plan price plus what you find in month two.

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Wix Year Two

How much is Wix per month — and what your Wix subscription renews at

Wix's own price list says $17 to $159 a month. What it does not put next to it is what year two costs — and which tier is the cheap-looking one that doubles.

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No Best, Four Jobs

AI website builder review: there is no best AI website builder, only four jobs

The market names a winner for every job and a score for every tool. Here is the same four winners with the one number none of those reviews prints: what year two costs.

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Two Bills

Cheap domain with hosting: the two bills, and what the bundle really costs

A domain and hosting are two purchases, and every bundle that puts them together works by making one of them look free. Here is each bill, priced over five years, and what the free domain is actually worth.

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Domain Pricing

Is a free domain for a year actually free?

A free registration year is a real thing and a well-known sales device. The test is not whether the year is free, but what the name costs in year two.

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Procedural Tutorials & How-To Guides

Step-by-step technical guides with DNS records, JSON-LD schemas, and static code export instructions.

DNS Tutorial

How to connect a custom domain to your website without paying markup fees

The one DNS record a custom domain needs, the value to enter in it, what to do at the root apex, and the step that makes the domain answer.

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Code Portability

How to export your website — what you can take, and what we do not ship

What you actually own on this platform, how to read it out over the public API, and the three things we do not ship: a CLI, a static bundle, and an export fee.

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Buyer Framework

How to choose a website builder — the questions that decide the outcome

What to compare beyond the headline price: editing model, substrate, renewal posture, what a free plan actually covers, and what happens if you leave.

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Host Selection

How to choose a web host: the six questions that decide it

Every guide on this query lists what to look for. This one is a method: six questions, each answerable from numbers the vendor has already published, in the order that disqualifies the most hosts first.

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Email Tutorial

How to set up email forwarding without breaking deliverability

Forwarding is one hop you do not control, and that hop is exactly what SPF checks. How to forward a business address, and when to host a mailbox instead.

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Business Email

How to set up business email at your own domain

A business email is a domain, a mailbox, and three DNS records. Here is what the providers actually charge for it, whether you need one, and the setup that makes your mail reach the inbox.

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Schema Verification

How to verify your LocalBusiness structured data

What the renderer emits, which fields turn an Organization into a LocalBusiness, and how to check the result without guessing.

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AI Search Setup

How to publish an llms.txt manifest for AI search

What the manifest is, what it is derived from, and why publishing — not writing it — is the whole procedure.

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Local Discovery

Google Business Profile optimization: SEO for local business

A local business has two surfaces on Google: the profile Google owns, and the site you own. One gets you into the map result; the other decides whether the click was worth making. Here is both, and the order to check them in.

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AI Citations

How to get cited by ChatGPT — and what earns the citation

What an answer engine does with your page, the four things it can act on, and the part no markup can do.

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Pillar D · Category Audits

Product Reviews & 50-Builder Battlecards

Audited 5-year TCO calculations, renewal multiples (up to 4.26×), and 7-part delivery matrices across 50 website platforms.

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Pillar E · Release History

Platform Engineering Changelog

Track live technical milestones, edge network expansions, protocol upgrades (HTTP/3, TLS 1.3), automated ICANN ERRP renewal sweeps, and compiler improvements.

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