New Site is Finally Here
So my new site is finally finished!!! I have been putting it off for far too long but feel like a big weight has been lifted now. My old readers will notice something in particular – the old posts are missing. I have decided that for a fresh start I am going to start again.
I am running WordPress like before, but with a few major differences. It has a very customized core that has been designed to fit the needs of this site exactly. Lots of the fluff has been removed and the code architecture improved. As you might already know, two things I strive for on the web are speed and scalability. This new WordPress core is very quick, right down to the way comments are processed. Some of my old posts would get hundreds of comments which slowed the page down while loading, that problem is now solved along with post loading time.
stephenb.co.uk is sporting a new theme which is designed solely to increase performance. I have used image sprites, minified CSS, JavaScript etc and used as little code as possible. That has resulted in a score of 86 on the chrome speed test, let down only by my server. That will be upgraded in time.
I have worked hard on scalability due to the sheer amount of traffic the site used to get (around 200,000 visitors a month), it really used to push the shared hosting to it’s limits, no need to worry about that now though. The optimized code will support a lot more requests. Another big help is the new hosting I am moving to soon. I have been trailing Amazon’s cloud solutions with a virtually dedicated Linux box, things are looking good at that will probably become the new home for the majority of my hosting needs.
I have a lot more to post about so stay tuned……….
Glad to have you back. It has been like weeks since the site went off. Changes certainly sound interesting though. Will you be posting any examples?
welcome back steve, like the design but dont forget to add the newsletter subscription (unless you dont do that anymore).
Rupert
Glad to be back! I will be posting examples later when I can make the code general use instead of specific to my needs.
PPC Man
Yeah I will be adding a newsletter signup form, but not right now. I have not decided whether I will use a sidebar box or a pop-up box.
Good looking design, i can see how it would load so fast, very efficiently coded. Fancy guest posting on my site?
This is exactly some thing I need to do more research into, appreciation for the post.
Nice details! I have been previously seeking something similar to this for a little bit now. Bless you!
Nice guest post! I like it. I was thinking of doing some guest posts myself but haven’t got around to it yet.
Better you should start now … I added few guest post and believe me response was simply awesome.
Fazal
Sure a guest post would be nice, have any particular topic in mind?
Thanks for the other comments, I will be publishing another post tonight
Hi mate! I fully agree with your opinion. I really value what you’re posting here.
Just thought i would comment and say neat design, did you code it yourself? Looks great.
I did, it was fully coded by myself. I think side projects are a great way to practice
I like http://www.stephenb.co.uk , bookmarked !
Nice to see you’ve finally got a site up!
Though it’s running a bit slow… and your emails don’t work any more?
Email is fixed
moving servers too which will speed everything up!
http://www.stephenb.co.uk rss feed bookmarked !