Fast Presence websites "just work." They are fast, attractive, reliable, easy to use, look great on any device and play well with the web (search engines, Facebook, etc.). Each one has careful, custom design to meet the client's needs without useless bloat that hinders their goals. Design experience, deep knowledge of Internet technologies and best practices are the difference between an amateur effort and a professional result. This is a fully managed service ensuring that your website starts great and stays great.
Fast Presence websites are powered by the latest production ready web technologies, carefully integrated, tested and continuously monitored. Unproven, poorly supported, "bleeding edge", unreliable, non-standard and/or slow technologies are not acceptable. Your small business website is too important for experimentation.
Here are some of the key technologies upon which Fast Presence depends:
- Hosting - business-class servers, ECC RAM, Intel Xeon CPUs coupled to substantial computing, I/O and networking resources.
- VPS - "virtual private server" provides reserved computing resources for maximum performance.
- KVM - the VPS "hypervisor" which provisions resources without over-subscription so that websites are not slowed due to competition with others.
- Linux - the premier operating system for web services.
- Apache - the gold standard for web servers.
- MySQL - a high performance SQL database server, well suited for backing websites.
- PHP - the latest versions (7/8) of the most widely chosen programming language for website implementation.
- LAMP - the last 4 bullets are so well respected as a complimentary set of technologies, they are often referred to collectively by this acronym.
- iptables/ipsets - low-level Linux security technology used by sophisticated Fast Presence proprietary detection technology to block malicious access.
- NVMe - "solid state disks" for high-performance "disk" I/O.
- RAID-10 - storage redundancy to further increase already high storage availability.
- virtual hosts - lowers cost by eliminating the need for per website IP addresses.
- S3 - enterprise level cloud storage services (AWS, Wasabi and Backblaze) for isolated backup services and multimedia assets.
- Mailgun - transactional e-mail delivery service for reliable contact and e-commerce messaging.
- SES - AWS transactional e-mail delivery for reliable contact and e-commerce messaging.
- ImprovMX - client domain e-mail forwarding (e.g. [email protected]).
- Cloudflare - CDN and video streaming service improves website performance worldwide.
- WordPress - the overarching framework within which each website is implemented.
- WPMU - a special mode of WordPress operation which eases administration and management of multiple websites (a/k/a WP multisite or WP network).
- Genesis - a highly respected framework which significantly expands WordPress customization and standardization.
- HTML 5 - the language used by web browsers to render the design of websites. HTML 5 is the latest version and is now universally implemented on modern browsers.
- CSS 3 - the presentation language used to implement the appearance of websites. HTML 5 and CSS 3 are totally different, but complimentary languages used together to implement the website design.
- SCSS 3 - SCSS provides a powerful layer above CSS making its development and maintenance easier and more reliable.
- responsive design - a design approach which allows websites to dynamically adapt to any device, screen size or orientation. So-called "mobile themes" are no longer a best practice and in comparison have significant drawbacks.
- CDN - the "content delivery network" which provides static resources from edge nodes closer to each website visitor. Simply put, this makes the website faster.
- TLS 1.3 - "transport layer security" is the latest method of encryption to insure the highest level of protection generally supported by browsers. Fallback to older protocols is automatic as necessary to accommodate website visitors' web browsers.
- SNI - "server name indication" is a protocol that lowers costs similar to virtual hosting, but removes the requirement of per SSL certificate IP addresses.
- SAN/UCC - subject alternative names / united communication certificates is a protocol that also lowers costs by removing the requirement of per website certificates to use SSL.
- HSTS - HTTP Strict Transport Security protects against several types of attack.
- DNSSEC - secure domain name service protects against site hijacking.
- QUIC - evolving transport layer which increases performance, reliability and security.
- HTTP/3 - is the latest version of the HTTP protocol that greatly reduces the number of connections required to render a website (making in faster).
- SEO - "search engine optimization" techniques to improve placement in search engine organic (free) search results. Fast Presence implements proven best practices.
- microdata - data element tagging, used where appropriate (e.g. people or product descriptions) as part of SEO.
- OpenGraph - a protocol which improves integration with Facebook, particularly in snippets attached to Facebook references to Fast Presence websites.
- icons - multiple icon badges to improve integration with various platforms and browsers (e.g. apple-touch-icon for Apple).
Finally, all of this is integrated and extended through Fast Presence proprietary programming (literally, thousands and thousands of lines). That is the "magic sauce" which allows the advanced technology above to be masterfully integrated and inexpensively deployed for Fast Presence clients.