Ege Uysal

I Rebuilt My Website From Scratch Yesterday

Mar 7, 2026

Yesterday I deleted my old website and started from zero.

Not a refactor.
Not a cleanup pass.
A full rebuild.

I did it because the old version had too much historical baggage. Every small change felt heavier than it should. The project still worked, but it no longer felt sharp.

I wanted a site that was simple to maintain, fast to load, and easy to write on every day.

This is the full process I used.

Why I Started Over

My website is not just a portfolio. It is where I publish what I build and what I learn.

If the publishing system feels slow or messy, writing becomes harder. So I set one rule before I touched code:

If a decision increases complexity without clear user value, it does not ship.

That rule removed a lot of noise immediately.

Plan Before Code

I set constraints first, then designed around them.

  • Keep core pages around the 40KB range (HTML + shared CSS)
  • Keep home useful but compact
  • Add pagination early, before content grows more
  • Keep content file based with MDX
  • Treat security as part of the build, not post-launch work

Once those constraints were locked, most implementation choices became obvious.

How I Rebuilt It

1) Reorganized the structure

I split the site into three clear surfaces:

  • Home for quick context
  • Blog for long form writing
  • Diary for short daily logs

Then I limited landing content to six blog posts and six diary entries so home stays readable.

2) Added pagination immediately

I did not wait for content to become unmanageable.

I set both blog and diary listings to 9 items per page from day one.

// listing pages
const pagination = paginateItems(postsOrEntries, 1, 9)

// paginated routes
const pages = getStaticPaginationPages(totalCount, 9).filter((page) => page > 1)

This kept page 1 lightweight while preserving discovery for older posts.

3) Removed dead weight

I removed unused components, dependencies, and assets.

The biggest visual decision was dropping custom font files and preloads for this version. A clean system mono stack was enough for the design language and saved bytes.

4) Kept analytics intentionally

I kept Vercel Analytics because I still want product signal. But everything else stayed strict and minimal.

The goal was balance: visibility without bloat.

Security Changes I Included

I treated security as default behavior during the rebuild.

What I tightened:

  • outbound MDX link sanitization for unsafe schemes
  • safe escaping for inline JSON-LD
  • explicit production headers in config
{
  "key": "Content-Security-Policy",
  "value": "default-src 'self'; object-src 'none'; frame-ancestors 'none'; script-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline' https://va.vercel-scripts.com"
}

I also added the rest of the standard header set:

  • X-Content-Type-Options
  • X-Frame-Options
  • Referrer-Policy
  • Permissions-Policy
  • Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy

That gave me safer defaults without complicating the writing workflow.

Final Numbers

After the rebuild, core pages landed here (HTML + shared CSS):

  • Home: 41,090 B
  • Blog index: 39,623 B
  • Diary index: 37,133 B

Roughly 40KB per key page.

I measured this after the final pass using the build output.

wc -c dist/index.html dist/blog/index.html dist/diary/index.html dist/_astro/*.css

Those numbers were the target, so I stopped there.

What Actually Worked

A few things mattered most:

  1. I deleted instead of patching old complexity.
  2. I set constraints before implementation.
  3. I added pagination early.
  4. I removed anything without a clear job.
  5. I measured after each major change.

Most wins did not come from clever tricks. They came from controlled scope and consistent cleanup.

If You Want to Rebuild Your Own Site

Start with rules, not tools.

Pick your weight target. Define the core pages. Decide what content belongs on home and what belongs in paginated lists. Then remove everything that fights those decisions.

If I had to compress the approach into one checklist:

  1. Set hard constraints first.
  2. Build the smallest useful structure.
  3. Add pagination before growth hurts.
  4. Remove dead code weekly.
  5. Ship with explicit security headers.
  6. Measure and lock the result.

That process is repeatable.

Closing

I rebuilt this website from scratch yesterday because I wanted speed, clarity, and control.

Now it is easier to maintain, easier to write on, and ready to ship.

If you are stuck with a site that feels heavier every week, try a one-day rebuild with strict constraints. You will learn fast, and your system will feel new again.