Xynode Gaming - Website Revamp Roadmap
Out With The Old, In With The New!
As many of you may have seen, for those following long term, the website Xynodegaming.com has had many changes over the years.
It started in 2017 with a drag and drop layout via Wix to get the ball rolling (with no web background really), in order to provide heavily requested “written guides” for the Builds and All About Mechanics Series entries, for The Elder Scrolls Online.
These guides were to support the videos of the Builds. Not to replace them, but to offer a quick check list of what you may need to remind yourself of. Generally speaking ALL the information relavant was in the video guide connected, which was kind of the point in putting in so much effort in the first place. Watch it and find out, and use the written guide in case you forgort something.
Over time online wants and needs have shifted. People go looking for a video, but then don’t watch it and demand a written guide instead. Kind of counter to the idea of a video sharing website (YouTube) but apparently that is where we are now.
People look up videos for a quick link to a written version. Which was NOT what the guides were intended to be. Again these were quick checks for things you forgot.
But again, demand has changed. So, while the videos help those that want them, the written guides had to have a LITTLE more detail in them. Written guides won’t have 100% of the information in them because there are so many demonstations in the videos that need to be seen, but MUCH more relevant information regarding the construction of said builds, needed to be shared.
And that is when the shift started.
The Shift from Wix Early On
In around 2019, I decided it was time for a change, and i started to reword, rebuild and potentially update the quality of the already existing pages, to provide a bit more information in them. Food, potions, rotations, etc. Rather than just Skills and Gear with a small introduction and video link.
This is when things go interesting. As i was updating the pages, each day or so I would come back and they had been RESET!
Something was clearly wrong, so I contacted customer service and they had someone whom I’m SURE no longer has a job there, respond to my requests. My concern was that my pages were constantly being reset. I wanted to know why?
My email response from the individual (not the company at fault per say but the individual in control) was that of, to paraphrase “we can do what we want, each time you change it, I will revert it”.
In short the traffic on the website was growing, someone had a bee in their bonnet about it, and decided to keep UNDOING my work!
This was incredibly frustrating, and nothing I could do would change it since someone had decided it would be their business to mess with my business. Getting through to other people in the company was at a loss unfortunately and I had to make a tough decision in order to still deliver content. I needed to move away from the platform.
SO, at that point in time, a 90 page website with multiple guides on it had to shift from one place to another. However my skill set was not that of a web developer at the time, so completely new knowledge had to be acquired while already creating content full time!
I noted to the Wix employee that I will be activating a server migrate to WordPress, which is perfectly doable and ALLOWED!…
To my disappointment, the same individual I had issues with , decided to intercept, and put a 7+ day hold/lock on all assets access! Blocking the transfer, with a timer on it.
Meaning? They were holding my website to ransom for spite, rather than activating my request immediately.
To this day I have no Idea what their problem was, but they were quite personal throughout at making sure I could not control anything OR leave without a fight.
I contacted their manager, but the process had already started and the lock in place so I had to WAIT for the timer to expire…With several thousand people wanting the guides assuming the site is gone forever, this was not good form at all.
So, I took matters into my own hands. I learnt as much as I possibly could about a completely different way to make a site (at least within my own knowledge and skill set) and rebuilt a brand new site from scratch in less than a 3 of days. I laid out absolutely everything connected to existing Urls of my my own domain, nuked the migration option, changed hosts, maintained my domain, and in LESS than a week overall, not only was the page up and running again, but it was DONE!
The new WordPress based site was revealed, shinier and better than ever, and I was free to make my own content without it being messed with, by others with a power agenda.
The Next Step
The NEXT step was a simple yet daunting task. Self teach myself as much as I could about web development, layouts, as well as learning about the potential of some of the tools, plug-ins available, to keep things as least complex as possible and maintaining a healthy fast and effective work flow.
Elementor and many other smaller plug-ins allowed for access to some drag and drop, text and titles, image and video boxes, and above all, HTML boxes where i could customise/create my own code (once learnt) if necessary for that extra spice.
Tables were no longer screenshots created via Photoshop, but instead I was utilising table plug-ins. Everything started to become a lot smoother. Complex but smoother.
Builds were many , All About Mechanics pages were flourishing (and still are) and the Ultimate Zone Guides were being made. A metric TON of hours and hard work over now almost a decade (9 years to date) of content delivered to the community for FREE along side the YouTube videos and live streams.
The ball was rolling great and so the content was up to date. The shift was a good one. While the work is overwhelming and hard to maintain along side working 12-18 hours a day as a full time creator, it’s there and people loved it!
However, there was a THORN in the side still…
The Show Stopper
In 2022 and 2024, I had two very important Stomach surgeries that put me heavily out of pocket. Unfortunately due to the nature of this job, if you are not THERE you make no money, and i had to take extended periods of time off to recover. No work, No money, so the pot was drying up while stress was setting in. Draining cash flow to live, while far less was coming in (due to inactivity) in this job, is a death sentence. So i had to remain vigilant and do what I could during that time, barely making ends meet.
The website was doing OK, but the YouTube and Twitch channels as a result saw far less traffic. Which is understandable as a side effect, but part and parcel of situation and causing problems.
During the recovery of my second surgery, there was a relationship break down and end, which was extra stress and cost, both money and time.
While I am now, 2 years later, happily Married. That period of time, moving from one place to another, WHILE recovering, and having no internet for an extended period of time with the new location waiting for instillation and being in a blind spot. I’m sure you can imagine what was happening to the bank at this time…No work No money. Catch 22. And I’m still playing catch up today!
Passive revenue was there temporarily but dropping rapidly with no new content. So it was going to get tricky fast.
THAT is when i noticed the bank dropping way faster (even considering the triple priced rent i now had pay) than it should have been.
A company I was working with for Ad revenue was dropping, bailing out of their LTD company, and looked like they were shifting onto another, while (for legal reasons no name will be mentioned). BIG loans were being taken out (legally visible on company house) and then large dividends were being paid out to staff while they shifted to a new business with the same people in charge. Typical LTD loop to prevent a 5 year block.
It happens all the time, but THAT negatively affected the website income.
During this time, their work with companies was suffering, their connections severed and my ad revenue on my site was as much as 95% down, while the traffic was in fact at LEAST 40% up!
This was not due to fluctuations in the market, but due to a company going down, and keeping it quiet. I chased many times and It was almost impossible to get a reply with anything other than “it will be fine”. It won’t be, sorry gotta go!
THAT much of a loss was not acceptable, and so I looked for a NEW partner for Ads (Whom I am now working with).
I had to get accepted, and on boarded FAST! To be sure that the site was now generating ZERO, instead of minimal. So I was verbally on boarded nice and fast BUT there was an issue.
While word of mouth told me it was OK, google did not. A referral is not enough, it had to be accepted by the powers that be.
Analytics their end, stated that while the Ad partner wanted to work with me, and could guarantee back to normal revenue and/ or better. I had to satisfy google parameters, and due to being behind for so long, the site simply, did, NOT!
I’d already exited the previous contract on an “if you think we are responsible for loss of earnings you can leave immediately” clause they thought I didn’t read(always read your contracts)…But now I’m stuck in limbo, and only ONE thing I could do…
It needed a revamp!
I MUST maintain the site uptime for the audience/viewers/supporters, I MUST satisfy google in order to get ad revenue back on the pages so I can actually pay some of the bills.
It needed to hit google checks and HAD to change a LOT!
Once you’re in you’re in, but if you’re trying to get BACK in, it’s more and more checks!
The Show Must Go ON!
I Had to get on-boarded properly! I had to start making money again, and i HAD to maintain the uptime of the site, having it DOWN was counter productive to organic growth, visibility and finances.Not an option!
Combined, that’s a lot of “OH SH*T” to deal with for ONE person 100% self taught in literally everything, WHILE trying to get back on the horse so to speak.
SO, Onboarding was first. This involved getting google to treat it as a “good site” for indexing, speed and quality. There are tight rules for this but I had to hit them. Their estimation was about 3-6 months based on the scope of the task to get the ball rolling. Which was no good for me, I was against the clock.
I started with the images. Manually going into EVERY single image, on the website, including every single real in game screenshot (not web sourced, REAL shots individually taken over time) every single icon, logo, skill, map, tot card, etc etc. There’s a LOT!
Not only did every image have to be compressed for quality and performance, but every title, caption, web description, Alt text had for EACH image, one by one, had to be customised, for SEO and quality control if you like…
And there were at this point 14488 of them!!!
I completed it in 48 hours!
The Show Must Go ON!
The next phase was SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
The Site over time had slipped with all the ongoings and it needed to hit the next level! When you look at the same thing every day it’s hard to see where things are going wrong, “google doesn’t like you and they need to before we can onboard you” was a slap! And one that was needed. SO SEO was now KEY!
While the pages were “satisfactory” they were not “good”. Blog posts (my own and guest posts/news) were hovering over “OK” and the main pages were the same, with the odd “bad” page to be expected, but not acceptable in my eyes. I wanted everything to be BRIGHT GREEN to google, NOT red/orange.
This would mean, going through every single page, and altering the information to remain valid but rewording it so that it lined up with expectations online (analytical checks and of course factual information) at the same time as matching the 14488 images Alt text (if applicable per page) AND altering the description, titles, keywords, synonyms and WAY more.
Each page potentially could take between a couple of hours, to a DAY! depending on the complexity of the page, and SOME are incredibly complex!
Before!
AFTER!
After 3 weeks straight of CUSTOM and MANUAL Search Engine Optimisation, for every single page that was live (there are many more that are not yet). NOT including Blogs/News/Guest posts.
I went from Red//Orange to BRIGHT GREEN! And GOOGLE said YES! (see above).
Predicted 3-6months minimum, I was done in less than a month on phase ONE. Onboarding, so SOME bills can continue to be paid, after a 2 month waiting period for first payment of course.
NEXT is when it gets crazy and when YOU get to find out what’s happening in the immediate future!
What Happens NEXT!?
Now that all the pages are lit up bright green from space, it is now about moving FORWARD!
I started a ball rolling by optimising thousands of images and hundreds of pages, and now it is about finishing that package by putting a bow on it. The bow however is a very LARGE one! I could have left it there, but the viewers need a BETTER site, so i started to rebuild while LIVE!
While as you can see above, Lazy Sorc was the first one to be hit beaming green, that was due to some other changes.
In the background i was checking for LCP compliance (Largest Contentful Paint). And many other contributing factors regarding load times including plug-ins and integrations.
While the SEO was amazing for all pages their load time was NOT, especially on Mobile. So in order for google not just to recognise them but to actively index them I had to do a full parse of the entire website, underlining everything that was making the pages SLOWER.
Which meant personal or web based settings needed to be altered both WordPress and hosting sides. MANY features and plug-ins had to be altered/ and/or removed in place of a more raw code layout in order to create a better flow and faster site.
This had to be done in the back end for each page, and for the entire site, and they had to meet in the middle. This painstaking learning experience and process, took several weeks to perfect, and now it is in a MUCH better state showing not only a positive to the viewers/audience but also to google too.
On older systems some pages were as slow as 7-12 seconds load time. Newer systems about 2-3. NOW, the NEWER versions of the pages, are super fast, on older and newer devices.
This entire process could not be done on a duplicate, or clone site drafted for later. Because this needed to be live NOW, for the audience, and for me. No money coming in? NO website for anyone.
I do this for free, in the HOPE to get paid via ad revenue. Waiting for potentially 2 years would have bankrupt me, and believe me, it was and still is VERY close!.
If I don’t get ranked, I don’t get on-boarded, I don’t get paid, no one gets content. Hence the urgency to keep it live while getting accepted.
I’ve had some comments online as to “why don’t you do XYZ”? That’s easy to say when you are a PAID web developer. When you are doing everything for free, against the clock chasing a day when things MAY or may NOT line up, you have to make choices. And I did.
NO down time, just page by page updates, and THAT is where the next phase comes into play. The Roadmap!
If i was to employ someone to do everything i have done to date, and everything that needs doing, it would hit around the $500,000 mark.
I’m not paid by the hour, let’s just consider that ;)
I’m ONE person, revamping a 9 year old site, LIVE!
Next, the roadmap!
THE ROAD MAP
As you know the first huge section was to do with image optimisation and of course Search Engine Optimisation. That allowed the website to get back on the map.This was crucial for onboarding and for the future performance of the website as builds, pages, and more need t be maintained and upgraded at the same time as considering technological changes online.
Keeping up with technology is an ongoing fight and something that anyone serious about their website should consider, new ways to browse, new trends, new searches, attention span, everything shifts on a daily basis. So to make sure google analytics was happy, many steps had to be taken to speed UP the website.
First step images, second step SEO, third step speed!
Trimming The Fat
With my intention to now remodel the entire site I had to start with the most used pages. This was important for growth, performance and for clarity and accessibility for the audience/supporters.
The build pages were great for SEO with the new changes but they needed a NEW face and they needed to be faster.
SO Phase ONE after the back end stuff was to redesign the ESO Builds pages.
The information is still relevant, the same, trimmed and/or updated With facts, explanations and SEO of course in mind. But above all the things that were hurting the pages were in fact VIDEOS.
My primary focus when delivering builds was video footage, guides, explanations and live streams. So it makes perfect sense that one would advertise as much on the relevant pages.
Each build page had it’s own unique YouTube video guide embed, which you could watch live for easy accessibility on page.
At the same time, the side bar (adverts and sponsors) had my Twitch channel embed, which meant if you clicked on it, you would join the stream.
Not “fake views”, or “fake embedding” that is totally different. Some people HIDE their embeds, and get shadow views, THAT is not allowed, and is totally cheating (yes twitch unfortunately is full of it). Embedding a link/show VISIBLY at the top of your page to advertise your own show is NOT shady, people can watch from there, OR live. BUT at least they can find you.
However, I digress, BOTH The YouTube videos, and twitch links while they looked great, were hurting the performance of the website a LOT. Each one by about 2.3s worth of load time.
SO now (and since 6 months ago), ALL twitch embeds have been removed from all sidebars, footers, pages, front page, side pages the LOT. The only place to see a feed, is on the Stream team Page.
With all of those removed, the site sped UP a LOT!
And also With each YouTube video removed, the pages individually skyrocketed in performance.
NOW for EACH build page, the video is a link on a Hero Image at the top of the page, which takes you TO the video rather than trying to load it on page.
Performance stage one successful!
In the mean time, the pages lacked easy navigation, so every build page now has it’s uniformed design, which was done ONE by ONE, with a contents table with set anchors to link to any section on any page, with a “back to the top” button on every section to lessen the need to scroll.
The introductions have been jazzed up, the design and layout is cleaner, fresher and new, and at the same time, the skill sections have been updated with code based tables NOT a plug-in. The same for the gear charts, NO more plug-in, all code. Which makes it far cleaner, and now to also increase speed. Yes those once helpful plug-ins have been removed!
Overall the build page design changes have a proven speed boost of now between 60-80%!
Each build page is it’s Original page you have used for years. They were updated LIVE working on around 6-10 pages at any one time, and took a LARGE amount of time. Also undergoing a few twists in design choices along the way. BUT they are all (pending a couple of changes) up to date!
That was the first most important thing to alter due to the bulk of the views hitting those pages.
Not only are they updated visually and performance wise, but they are UP to date for Update 48 and 49! (Dragonknight will need adjusting again soon)
Of course a lot of back and forth and copy pasting over time on a live site WILL incur Errors, but if you DO see any please of course do email (details below).
The pages took MONTHS to do, and they are now looking 10x better than before.
NEXT was the hard part and more to come!
Site Map
While performance and quality are both skyrocketing, there is a contributing factor overall that google also sees as problem, and that is the sitemap.
Over time the links have been kind of all over the place, but you had the links none the less.
Well now I have completed about 30-40% of the renaming and relocating of the pages on the site map, but do NOT worry!
While many pages are to be changed, they will be altered in places that you know.
A prime example of this is the Builds pages. You will see now that they are /eso-builds/class/name/
That is now uniformed for all builds, but there’s more! For those that go to video guides of the builds, INCLUDING the really old videos that people still do find. I have updated ALMOST all of the videos on YouTube in their descriptions, to represent/replace their old written guide links with updated ones. Hundreds of videos altered so people can find things right away!
Hundreds of redirects were removed from old site paths and replaced with new ones if and where necessary, but finding the relevant content should be far easier now.
Not to mention of course the drop down menus have been redesigned, and the search bar on site will point you to anything you are looking for, located in the top right on desktop.
The All About Mechanics sections have also ALL been updated with a brand new sitemap paths and locations. Same pages, new links. ALL connected YouTube videos have been updated with their links too.
Bear in mind livestreams may have old links for a while since i have done about 3000+ of those lol!.
Alongside the All About mechanics site map side of things, the All About Mechanics ADDON on PC has ALSO been updated with ALL of the new links!
The Next Phase Of Reworks!
With the back end is satisfactory for now, ALL landing pages for class builds have been updated, along with every single build for each section. They are modernised, updated, and far faster.
The class guide pages, with the individual class guide videos, have expanded to multiple pages now, and have the skills sections for all classes (yes Dragonknight will be changed soon with U49).
The Guides page, has been remodelled pending further updates to individual pages, and I can now move onto the next section, which is the ever important ALL About Mechanics Section!
The All About Mechanics Guides have proven to be a life saver for many player’s. Providing solid explanations behind the how and the why of mechanics for dungeons trials and arenas. Now that the Build pages are done, this section is the NEXT priority.
The site map for these pages and their links have already been updated as you can see above, and I have made a start on altering this section.
So far, the Dungeons, DLC Dungeons, Trials and Arenas pages individually are already done. These are subsections/categories for the individual instance pages. Already they are faster and VERY shiny to look at, uniformed with my new website overall branding design.
This revamp of live existing established pages, is an incredibly complex and delicate task, but so far, it’s looking good!
Now that these individual landing/sub pages are done, it is time to tackle the BEAST! The over 60x All About Mechanics guides!
These will not only be faster, visually better, and more accessible but they will feel like a far better smoother experience for the user. Visuals is one thing of course but the pages are LONG currently. I cannot simply trim DOWN the information and cut out details, although the information will be slightly shorter with a rewording or two here and there.
So what i am doing here and already have started on, is to split the pages into multiple.
Following their site map rules, each dungeon trial or arena will also have a /boss-name at the end. Meaning? Every page will be smaller, simply going over the quest, what to expect, general trash enemies, and the gear that drops, but the BOSS section will no longer be a scrolling mess!
Instead, a BOSS section will be on each page, with an image you can click to go to each unique boss page. These images are all raw and polished images from IN GAME shots. Some of the best images you will find for bosses online!
This will allow for fast access, beautiful images, and also an opportunity to go back to any individual page you like, without trying to scroll for the information. Each boss will have it’s own link, so you can save them for later!
Along side this, much like the build guides, the videos will ALL be removed fom the site and replaced with a hero image, with a link. You can click the link to go straight to the video section, and also per boss page, a time stamp link WILL be available to go straight to the boss if applicable.
See below for before and after!
As you can see the old on the left, was a scroll fest, and the new on the right, has a section you can choose what you are looking for from, and you simple go to THAT boss only. With a back to page button, you never lose where you were, and if you want to you can bookmark individual bosses for another time, or to share with a friend!
This is just ONE example of what’s to come. Of course cleanup is important and there will be a full sweep much like with the build guides at the end.
There are over 60 pages, and each one between 3-9 bosses. Each of which will have to have their OWN page, their own layout and information, some copy and paste can be done yes, but most of it will be customising it in a unique way to allow it to be, an actual page. YES that includes, all the back end stuff, SEO, images, titles, descriptions etc.
If you understand THAT, then you can see how much of a daunting task it is already for the Infinite Archive page, which stands to have about 100 new pages coming from it as an INDIVIDUAL guide!
Once every single current guide is reworked, and updated, THEN the outstanding (missing) Dungeons and Trial guides will be introduced finally to the website!
Prior to that however (potentially this week) The Xyborg discord bot links will all be updated with the new links even for non updated but ready to be updated, pages.
This entire AAM process alone since I’m working solo, is probably looking at about 3-4 months. Estimated of course considering the Builds section and the entire rework back end and front, so far has taken 5.
Then we move onto the next phase!
After The All About Mechanics
Once the All About Mechanics Section is complete, I will be tackling all smaller guides for Races, and Undaunted pages as well as individual guide pages (new ones coming soon also). Not excluding of course beginner guides that already exist.
The potion maker has been on the site for some time courtesy of UESP, and was great to start with. However I anticipate some changes for that section of the game soon. I’ve invested a lot of money and time integrating it in the first place so it would be sad to see it go, but honestly… It’s kind of clunky at this stage, doesn’t scale well on some devices, and is about time it was removed.
The alchemy guide will remain, but the maker is being deleted.
Once all of the ESO Race, guide pages are done, the Companion pages will also be updated. These will all get the new polish, performance pass the rest have had, and be brought up to speed with the rest of the site.
Shortly following that will be the remaining LARGE pages for general guides (including scrying, scribing etc), which is the Tales of Tribute section.
The Tales of Tributes section is HUGE and there is far too much scrolling, so that will be condensed, much like the AAM pages, but again will be split into multiple pages.
This section will be difficult but not as time consuming as the All About Mechanics.
I anticipate THIS section to push to about the 1-2 Months mark.
THE FINAL STRETCH!!
Once ALL of the above is complete, I will be pushing to the final beast. The ULTIMATE ZONE GUIDES!!
This section is for every single zone in the game, small, large, chapter, dlc, doesn’t matter, it’s ALL there.
These sections are TERRIBLE on performance but ram packed of relevant information. The information will be in tact, albeit shortened, but above all each page will be split up into multiple pages.
You can expect tables of contents of course in the same uniformed style as other newer pages, but the site map update and the pages will be overhauled in a far simpler easier to digest manner.
Each sub section will have a separate page with it’s own link should you need to be on something specific like “/Auridon-skyshards”(example not finalised) for ease of use.
There are multiple zones and each one will have at LEAST 20 pages coming from it. Accessibility, and performance, and visuals, will be far better on all devices for everyone!
I understand this sounds simple, but it’s not. It will take me about 3months + to complete this section.
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Overall this is a colossal task for me to undertake but a necessary one none the less. I anticipate about 11 months straight give or take for this to be completed, and I’m WELL into it so far!
My work flow is similar to that of my previous job as a concept artist, and to control/fight elements of ADHD which can hinder motivation. That is to work on MANY pages simultaneously (about 3-9 pages at once) to prevent burn out. However some things can get smushed before I do my clean up sweep at the end of a section.
If you do happen to find any errors, copy paste, smushing, whatever…please do Email me at Xynode@xynodegaming.com.
I have it all in hand, I have a plan, I have my methods, and I have taken action successfully so far during this revamp but it’s like I said before, a LOT.
I’ll of course try to limit mistakes, but there will be some along the way. Communication is key! Let me know.
I would like to say a HUGE thank you to the viewers/supporters for sticking with me this long, I am glad the content has helped you and hope it continues to do so. I appreciate your patience during this time, especially given that I’m an individual working on this, not an entire web team that can whip it up in a week.
ONE MORE THING!! – I recently (two weeks ago) put a cherry on the cake, and upped my monthly web costs to a substantial amount more, in order to purchase more processor cores and more RAM, so the site, is faster dynamically and NOW hardware wise too!
Thank you all again for your continued support and keep coming back of course for more updates! If you would like to help support the site, every little helps and is hugely appreciated!
Support Xynode Gaming Thanks again,
Xynode
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Wow you had a lot to say. I drank a whole pint reading. Missed the beginning but been here for the past 5+ years and enjoying the ride
Thank you! LOTS more to come along the way content wise, just hope this helps put people’s minds at ease.
ALSO is there more beer? LOL