#43 Migrating from React to raw JS for a tiny SEO-friendly blog

I migrated my blog from a React/Vite app to a tiny build script that generates static HTML. wanted fewer moving parts, predictable output, and pages that are fast and indexable by default.

What problems I had (React)

• SEO bad: search engines can't render JS
• React was overkill: a blog is mostly text + images + embeds

The new approach (raw JS static generator)

Now the “app” is basically:

• A folder of markdown files: content/posts/*.md
• A build script: scripts/build.mjs
• A couple templates: src/templates/page.html and src/templates/post.html
• Minimal CSS + tiny optional JS for convenience buttons

At build time we:

1. Read markdown
2. Normalize content (e.g. convert <img ...> to markdown images, embed YouTube links)
3. Extract metadata
   • title
   • excerpt (short description)
   • preview image / YouTube thumbnail
4. Render HTML for each post and for paginated index pages

No client-side router, no hydration, no “loading state”. Just pages.

SEO wins (the practical kind)

• The content is in HTML immediately. View-source shows the whole article.
• Faster first paint because we don’t ship a JS app just to display text.
• Stable metadata: each post page has its own <title> and description.