A few weeks ago, a guy from my networking group asked if I could take over his website. He wanted it moved away from the host he was with. Whenever someone asks me to take over a site, I automatically assume it is built on WordPress. I went to the site and looked at the source code and I didn't see the usual tell-tale signs of WordPress. I went to a site I use when I am not sure about the stack used to build a site called builtwith.com. What came back was something I don't think I had seen in a while. There was no builder. No WordPress. It was just straight code.
My first thought was that this was going to be an absolute mess, and to be fair, it was. The thing is that it wasn't a mess because it was code, it was a mess because it was code for a 12 year old site that was a patchwork of updates and changes that caused the code to bog down slowing the site to a crawl.
The Template Hiding Inside the Code
Now a lot of people who work with code say that the benefit is that you don't have to work with templates and you can control more aspects of the website through the code. That is absolutely true. The problem was that when I got into the code, there were entire blocks of code that were not being used and were never used. The code was there because the site, even though it was just code, was a template.
The problem with templates on platforms like WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace is that you really have no idea what is buried in the template.
Templates are usually loaded up with options most people do not need and most people don't know enough to go in and remove the things they do not need. This is why I don't use templates even when I am working in Wix. This is the same issue I found in this coded website. There were entire blocks of code running on the website even though it wasn't doing anything.
Two Weeks Chasing Core Web Vitals
I spent 2 weeks in the code for this site, because at some point it became my mission to get this site to give the benefit that a site like this is supposed to provide, which is to be superfast, which is something that Google looks for with their Web Core Vitals.
What Was Old Is New Again
After cleaning up the code and getting this site to where it should have been years ago, I decided a site built with code may not be such a bad idea, especially for clients who have a simple brochure site with a blog. Over the last several weeks I have been relearning code which I had not regularly used since I first started in IT back in 1997.
The first coded site I went live with after finishing the previous project is for Blue Star Cigars. They send cigars to servicemembers who are deployed overseas, which for these men and women (yes women, too) is a huge morale boost. Check out their site (send cigars to someone you know who is on deployment) and see how code can still compete against any builder out there, and in my personal experience of building more than 80 sites over the last 5 years, makes some of the best looking sites I have ever done.