Guides

Short answers to the questions behind a website

Each guide opens with the answer in two sentences, then shows the working. Written from the code that runs the product, with the date it was last checked.

Web analytics Is ChatGPT sending you visitors? Look for visits whose referrer is chatgpt.com or one of the other assistants. Apps that strip the referrer arrive with none, so whatever you count is a floor. Read the guide Counted as AI assistants by the address they come from chatgpt.comchat.openai.comperplexity.aiclaude.aigemini.google.comcopilot.microsoft.comchat.mistral.aiyou.com
Web analytics Do you need a cookie banner for analytics? Not for measurement that stores nothing on the visitor's device and keeps no IP address. Whether your site needs one still depends on everything else it loads. Checked 6 Oct 2026 Web analytics Which AI crawlers should you let in? Some read to train a model, some to build an answer index, and some fetch a page because a person asked. Refusing the first kind keeps you in the answers. Checked 6 Oct 2026 Bookings How do you stop double bookings? Two people pick the same time in the same second, and a check in code passes for both. A database rule refusing overlaps is the one check that cannot race. Checked 6 Oct 2026 Bookings What happens to bookings when clocks change? On the spring morning an hour of wall time never happens, and in autumn one happens twice. Store instants, and show them on the business's own timezone. Checked 6 Oct 2026 Bookings How do you leave time between appointments? Add a buffer before or after the service, for setting up or cleaning down. Nothing can be booked inside it, and the customer never sees it. Checked 6 Oct 2026 Bookings How far ahead should people be able to book? A new project takes bookings from 60 days ahead until 2 hours before the appointment, which suits most businesses. Both are yours to change. Checked 6 Oct 2026 Payments How to take a deposit when someone books Set the deposit once, as a percentage or a fixed amount, then ask for it on the services that need it. Only the payment provider confirms the booking. Checked 16 Oct 2026 Payments Is the thank-you page proof of payment? No: anybody can open it, paid or not, and somebody who paid may never reach it. Confirm a booking only on the payment provider's signed message. Checked 8 Oct 2026 Content Headless CMS or website builder? A builder, if nobody is going to write code for you. A headless CMS, when somebody builds the site and you want to change the words yourself afterwards. Checked 22 Oct 2026 Content How to edit a site without breaking the design Give the editor fields, not a page builder. The sections are defined once with the design, and editing changes what is inside them, never the layout. Checked 22 Oct 2026 Developers How to verify a webhook before you trust it Check the signature over the raw body with your endpoint's secret, and refuse an old timestamp. Answer quickly, and expect the same delivery twice. Checked 8 Oct 2026 Developers Publishable or secret key: which goes where? The publishable key goes in the browser: it reads what is published and takes bookings. The secret key reads customers and payments, so it stays on a server. Checked 8 Oct 2026

Glossary

The words these pages use, said once and plainly

Every term, with what it means here

Numbers come from the code

A limit or a retention window is read from the setting that enforces it, so a guide cannot go on quoting last year's figure.

Dated, and sourced

Every guide shows the day it was last checked, and links the pages of other companies it describes.

No stories we cannot show

No invented customers, results or quotes. Where an example is needed, it says it is one.