Saving 737DIYSIM.com

In 2016, one year after starting 737DIYSIM, I wanted to share my builds with the world and created a website. Despite having no experience with web design, I searched for user-friendly website creators and found that WIX was highly recommended for ease of use and stunning creations. While I was happy with WIX, some issues have bothered me.

Firstly, the menu bar takes 5-7 seconds after the page loads. This causes a delay in showing the drop-down menus and results in people clicking on buttons that have nothing. Unfortunately, I was unable to fix this issue. Secondly, I have observed that whenever the number of visitors on my website exceeds 30, the pages start to display errors or the website goes down and the webshop stops functioning properly. This issue has become more noticeable after the introduction of certain products. I also found that WIX had limitations on the amount of data and page limit. This made it difficult to include all the plans, wiring diagrams, build guides, and pictures for the 737.

To make the website faster and preserve its old version, we attempted to simplify each page and eliminate over 50 outdated pages containing excessive data. We followed Google's recommendations and excluded everything except Javascript, which we cannot modify. It's worth noting that the build guides are extensive and displaying 200+ build steps with such a high amount of information was bound to pose a challenge on whatever website they are hosted on.

Google later notified me that my WIX website needed to be faster, and further investigation showed that the desktop homepage took around 5 seconds to load. In comparison, the mobile homepage took 7.1 seconds. Despite removing everything from the homepage except for the logo, I was still waiting for a fix. Google suggested I remove unwanted Java Script, but WIX reported that it needed this JS and could not be removed. After reading articles that explained WIX was not the best option for high-volume traffic and large data sites, I decided to look for other means of website hosting. After consultation, we have learned simply, we have outgrown our host WIX.

I have now switched to WordPress, Dreamhost, and Elementor to create and host the new site with the help of external professionals. The goal is to make all the content easily accessible and optimized for maximum speed while not being limited by data storage capacity.

While some pages still need to be included, and some photos may not appear during the transition period, my team is working to get the old WIX site back up and running until the new one comes into effect. During this transition period, we kindly ask for your patience. If you notice any errors on the old site, please don't hesitate to let us know so we can fix them as soon as possible. Thank you, Karl & Helen.