noun: the part of a network address that identifies it as belonging to a particular domain.

example: https://blueandpine.com

synonyms: URL, site name

You can have as many domain names as you wish. Sometimes having a few options can increase your SEO and make it easier for your clients, users, or donors to find you.

**At Blue + Pine you are billed annually for your domain name(s).

noun: the Internet’s equivalent of a phone book. It maintains a directory of domain names and translates them to Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. This is necessary because, although domain names are easy for people to remember, computers or machines, access websites based on IP addresses.

example: (A Record DNS) “A * 45.56.93.29 1 hour”

DNS supports a variety of records that the internet uses to verify, find, and show your website. The ones we most commonly use are:
+ A Records (used to attach your name to your site files)
+ CNAME Records (used to map one domain name to another)
+ MX Records (used to attach an email client to your domain name)
+ Verification Records (used by a variety of web based services, to verify your ownership of the domain name)

**It’s easy to get in the weeds when navigating DNS records. No need to get frustrated, trust B+P to help. We offer DNS management to all our website clients.

noun, verb: A web host, or web hosting service provider, is a business that provides the technologies and services needed for the website or webpage to be viewed in the Internet. Websites are hosted, or stored, on special computers called servers.

Basically, this gives your site data (files, images, links, etc..) a place to live on the internet. It keeps your site from being homeless and gives your domain name/site address a place to connect to!

**B+P offers premium WordPress hosting on our dedicated server through Flywheel. We bill annually for hosting your site on our server.

noun: An email address associated with your domain name.

example: hello@blueandpine.com

Professional emails are a way to let your customers, donors, and users know you are a legit business or organization that can be trusted. It also allows you to create as many website address as your company might need!

You can purchase these email accounts through a variety of services. G-Suite, with Gmail/Google, is the most popular with B+P Clients.
We have also worked with these providers, for example:
+ Office365
+ Forwarding Services
+ GoDaddy
+ BlueHost

**B+P makes setting up your professional email super easy! We handle all the DNS records, verification, and even offer training on how to navigate your admin email area!

verb: An ongoing service dedicated keeping your site admin site up-to date and running well. This generally includes updating for the WordPress core, themes and plugins. Optionally, it can also include updating content such as web copy, images, and site design.

Website maintenance is part of best practices, when it comes to website ownership. Just like owning and maintaining a home, you need to keep on top of maintenance to ensure increased value, safety, and comfort.

The number ONE reason sites get hacked, is the lack of maintenance.

** B+P offers a variety of website maintenance plans from basic – custom. We also offer complimentary training with all our website builds. We want you to feel comfortable with your ownership, but of course we are happy to help if you’d rather we do it for you!

noun: In computing terms, a plug-in (or plugin, function, or extension) is a software component that adds a specific feature to an existing computer program. In other words, plugins allow additional functions to be performed on top of the default functions the particular software or website is designed for.

example: Event Calendar Pro, Genesis E-News, or Timeline Pro

This optional feature of WordPress sites, is what makes WordPress one of the most used site builders, world-wide. If you can dream it , there is probably a plug-in available to make those dreams come true!

Developers, world-wide, develop and maintain plug-ins for site designers to customize their sites. Some of these plug-ins are free to use and some require a one-time or renewable licensing fee.

**At Blue+Pine, we utilize a variety of premium and trusted plug-ins to customize your site.

noun: A content delivery network (or CDN) is a network of servers that serves up your website and its assets from different locations based on the user’s location. For example, let’s say you’re not using a CDN and your site is hosted in San Francisco. When someone from, say, Spain visits your site, they have to retrieve all your assets from your server in San Francisco. The long distance between the two locations clearly takes longer than if someone from San Francisco loads your site that’s hosted in San Francisco. What a CDN does is serve your assets from, for example, New York, Seattle, Omaha, France, London, Beijing AND San Francisco (and many more). The idea is that users will hit the server closest to them and not sacrifice load time because there’s a huge distance between them and the server.

Unlike traditional CDNs that only cache site assets (*.css, *.js, etc.), our CDN offers full-page caching, which includes the full HTML of your pages. This vastly improves your time to first byte (which is super good for SEO)!

Fastly is an industry leading CDN provider trusted by some of the biggest sites in the world: BuzzFeed, the New York Times, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, and more. Now, your site can leverage those resources!

**Interested in a super fast website? We wrote a post all about CDN to help you decide if it is right for you. Check it out: Content Delivery Network. What the What?