I archived my WordPress Blog by Making it Static

ByLeon Hitchens

Since early 2013, I ran a technology blog called Digital Bounds. In January of 2019, I decided it was time to sunset the project. I worked on the site for over seven years. I published thousands of articles, wrote dozens of reviews, and had the chance to travel to CES, SXSW, and other technology conferences.

Since I sunsetted the project, I have been keeping the blog up as an archive. Digital Bounds is using WordPress with a custom theme designed by Kyle and integrated into WordPress by Sunny. I have been keeping it up to date with the most recent WordPress installs. Over the past few weeks, it’s become more challenging to keep WordPress working with plugins and the theme. I started exploring how I could archive the website with the current theme and content I have written over the years.

The best way to archive without hosting WordPress is by converting Digital Bounds into a fully static website. This would not only allow me to archive most of the Digital Bounds site but reduce hosting costs to a minimal amount. To keep Digital Bounds running, I used a Digital Ocean droplet that cost around $50 a month to run each month. Having a static site would mean keeping a much smaller server or using a service like Vercel.

SiteSuace is the service I used to archive Digital Bounds

Sitesauce helped convert Digital Bounds from WordPress to a Static site

I looked around for a static option for Digital Bounds for a while, playing with the idea for weeks. Then, I came across a Twitter convo about static websites. I discovered Sitesauce. Miguel, the indie dev behind the project, invited me to the private beta, where I was able to convert Digital Bounds to a static site on Vercel easily.

The process was straightforward, entering the domain into the system and connecting my Vercel account. I ran into a few deployment issues with the site, most of them caused by the size of Digital Bounds. The problems were resolved quickly by restarting or preventing the WAF from blocking crawls.

Now, with Digital Bounds archived, I don’t have to pay for the monthly hosting – saving some money when everyone is cutting back. Plus, I am more confident that static hosting will cause fewer issues. I don’t have to worry about hack attempts on WordPress, updates of plugins, or managing a server.

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