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My Website Is Old Enough To Vote - Kris Howard
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The Web is an industry that thrives on the new... but what about building sites that last? In 1996, I used my newly acquired HTML skills to build a fan site for my favourite author. Twenty years later, the site - roalddahlfans.com - is still alive and kicking. I'll trace the development of the site over the years, which mirrors both my own career journey as a developer and the trajectory of the web as a whole. I'll also talk about the challenges I faced during my recent 6-month project to convert the whole site - nearly 1500 pages - to WordPress, dragging it into the 21st century at last.
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My Website Is Old Enough To Vote - Kris Howard
- My Website Can Vote The Challenges of Maintaining a 20-year-old Website
- 20 frickin’ years
- December 1996
- December 1996
- 6 months
- 2 years
- 3 years
- 3 years
- 3 years
- 3 years
- 4 years
- 4.5 years
- Meanwhile…
- 5 years
- 5 years
- 5 years
- Fast forward 14 years…
- 19 years
- So what to do?
- Pros • Security - better than what I had • PHP-based • Responsive themes • Plugins! • Better admin UX - including ACL & versioning • Less friction to update
- Cons • Security - WordPress is a big target • Learning curve • Migration effort • Ego - would using WordPress make me look like a n00b?
- Concerns • How to organise the site? How much of the cross-referencing to automate? “This has to be a solved problem, right?” • 20 years of inbound links and PageRank to preserve • Hard-coded HTML styles in the DB to clean up
- The Plan • Set up site on new host • Create basic site structure • Read up on security • VaultPress & Wordfence • Auto-updates • Set up child theme and create nav menu • Start migrating content
- Migration • Start with simplest pages and sections first • Write functions where needed • Required some plugins: • Advanced Custom Fields • Add Categories to Pages • WP Gallery Custom Links…
- More Plugins • Breadcrumbs -> Breadcrumb NavXT plugin • Calendar -> My Calendar plugin • Trivia Quizzes -> Riddle (+ plugin) • Polls -> WP-Polls plugin • Search -> Relevanssi plugin • Timeline -> ???
- Final Steps • Migrate all old news/blog posts • Set up Adsense and Analytics • Update the theme • Set up .htaccess redirects • Change DNS to point to the new site!
- Some numbers… • ~4500 page views/day • 28% US; 25% UK; 6% AU • 60% desktop; 27% mobile; 13% tablet • 84% via search; 11% direct; 4% referral; < 1% social • Most popular content: short stories; trivia quizzes; teacher materials
- What’s Next • Set up SSL • Mop up broken links • Add new content • Update design once illustrations are finished • Keep an eye on stats & revenue
- Thanks! @web_goddess Kris Howard @RoaldDahlFans http://www.roalddahlfans.com
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