Aurelia is a long-running open-source JavaScript framework, and aurelia.io is where a developer decides whether to try it. We rebuilt the site to look like the framework it represents, load fast, meet accessibility standards, stay simple for the maintainers to keep current, and hold the search ranking the old site had spent years earning. It's built with Aurelia 2 and prerendered, so crawlers and first paint both get a finished page.
A rebuild that couldn't cost the project its traffic
Aurelia has years of history, an existing audience and a search presence built up over all of it. For most developers, aurelia.io is where they decide whether to try the framework at all, so the rebuild came with constraints attached: look like Aurelia, load fast, meet accessibility standards, stay easy and safe for maintainers to update, and hold the search position. A prettier site that quietly dropped off page one would have been a downgrade.
On brand for Aurelia
We carried the identity across the whole site: the mark, the brand colour and the framework's own voice, including the short three-word tagline the project is known for. Home, showcase, blog and the entry into the documentation share one look, so the site reads as the official home of the framework instead of a template wearing its logo.
Keeping the ranking
Years of links and crawling had earned the old site a position that a careless rebuild wipes out in about a week. So we treated it as something to protect. URL structure, page headings, metadata and internal links stayed steady through the redesign rather than getting reinvented for the sake of it. Prerendering does the rest: crawlers get the real content in the initial HTML instead of an empty shell waiting on JavaScript, which is how the framework stays visible for the queries that bring new developers in.
Fast, accessible and safe to run
The site is an Aurelia 2 application prerendered to static output with a small asset footprint, so pages arrive quickly and complete. Accessibility went in at the start: semantic markup, keyboard navigation, colour contrast, and light and dark themes that both hold up. Content lives in the repository, so an update is an edit and a rebuild rather than a login to a sprawling CMS, and static output leaves an attacker almost nothing to aim at. There's a neat side effect to all this. The framework's website runs on the framework, which is a harder demonstration to argue with than any claim on the homepage.
Build notes
- Built with Aurelia 2, so the framework's own website runs on the framework it is asking people to try.
- Prerendered output: the headline, copy and metadata arrive in the initial HTML, so crawlers and first paint get a finished page instead of an empty shell waiting on JavaScript.
- Kept the ranking the previous site had earned, by holding URLs, headings, metadata and internal links steady through the rebuild rather than resetting them.
- Built to accessibility standards: semantic structure, keyboard navigation, sensible colour contrast and a working light and dark theme.
- Tuned for speed with a small asset footprint, so the page is quick even on a modest connection.
- Content lives in the repository instead of a heavy CMS, so an update is a small edit and a rebuild, and the static output leaves very little to attack.
