Migrate to SSG/SSR for improved SEO crawlability

[kahboom]

Problem

Currently, the site is a client-side React SPA. While we've added meta tag prerendering to help search bots see unique titles and descriptions, the actual page content still requires JavaScript execution. This can limit:

• Search engine crawl efficiency
• Initial content visibility to bots
• Performance (First Contentful Paint, LCP)
• AI crawler accessibility

Proposed Solution

Migrate to a framework with built-in Static Site Generation (SSG) or Server-Side Rendering (SSR):

Option 1: Astro (Recommended)

• Ship zero JS by default, add React islands where needed
• Excellent SEO out of the box
• Fast build times
• Can reuse existing React components
• Minimal refactoring required

Option 2: Next.js

• Industry standard with excellent DX
• Great for SSR/SSG hybrid approaches
• Strong ecosystem and community
• More complex migration from Vite

Option 3: Vite SSG Plugin

• Minimal migration effort (same build tool)
• vite-plugin-ssr or vite-ssg
• Keep existing setup mostly intact

Benefits

• ✅ Fully rendered HTML for all routes on first load
• ✅ Better Core Web Vitals scores
• ✅ Improved crawl efficiency for search bots
• ✅ Better support for AI crawlers (GPTBot, Claude-Web, etc.)
• ✅ Faster perceived load times
• ✅ No JavaScript required for content display

Related

• Builds on the meta tag prerendering added in #recent-commit
• Would eliminate the need for the prerender script (native framework support)
• Should be done before implementing structured data (#issue-2)

Labels

enhancement, SEO, architecture