Independent notes, not a test lab

Who this is

Gary Thomas writes and publishes Shopfront Stack. There is no newsroom, no lab of 47 hosts, and no panel of “certified experts.” There is also no invented biography: this site does not claim awards, years in a registrar’s partner program, or testimonials we did not receive.

The point of view is practical. Local trades do not fail because they picked the wrong CDN. They fail because the phone number is missing, the domain is a Facebook URL, or the project died in a WordPress install.

Methodology

When a guide names a price or a product, it is based on:

• Public list prices and plan names as published by the vendor
• Product documentation (what is included: SSL, mail, builders vs hosting)
• What an owner-operator has to finish in month one to be reachable

When a guide does not do something, that is also methodology:

• No fake star scores or “editor’s choice” ribbons
• No invented testimonials, case studies, or “we migrated 200 plumbers”
• No pretending Bluehost or HostGator are in our CJ set
• No mystery mystery-shop of every template

Squarespace and Wix appear because they are the honest alternatives to GoDaddy Website Builder for this audience. Mention is not an affiliate relationship.

Money

Shopfront Stack intends to earn commissions through CJ Affiliate when you buy from GoDaddy, HP Store, or Office Depot / OfficeMax via our links. That is a material connection under FTC endorsement guides. It is disclosed in the site header, at the top of articles, and on the disclosure page. Placeholder affiliate URLs live in lib/affiliates.ts until live CJ links are pasted in.

Corrections

Prices move. If a plan name or an included feature is wrong, email hello@shopfrontstack.com. We would rather update a paragraph than defend a stale table.