Case study · Fan reference site, formerly The Isolate Tower
An Earthsea Compendium
A fan compendium of 1003 Earthsea entries, first published as The Isolate Tower on web technology from the late 1990s. We had no logins for the old site, so we worked from its public pages: we copied every page, checked nothing was lost, then built a new site that works offline and has a simple editor.
See it live
BeforeAfter
Drag the hexagon to compare. Both sides are shown as they look on a laptop. The original is rendered from our copy of the live site, with its own styling.
LightDark
One entry page, two themes. Every cross-reference is an ordinary link to an address you can share.
| Compared | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Browser warning | “Not secure” on every page | None: every page has a secure connection |
| On a phone | About twice as wide as the screen, so you scroll sideways | Fits the screen |
| Links between entries | 797 on one page, each opening a small pop-up window | Normal links. Every entry has its own page to bookmark or share. |
| Finding an entry | Browse by letter or by category | Type a word and results appear at once |
| Reading with no connection | No | Yes, after the first visit |
| Dark mode | No | Yes |
| Speed on a phone | 96 | 91. It downloads the whole compendium on the first visit, so it works offline, and the page moves slightly as it loads. |
| Easy to use for everyone | 76 | 93 |
| Built to current standards | 67 | 100 |
| Ready for search engines | 100 | 58, on purpose: while it is a draft, it asks search engines not to list it |
Scores are out of 100, from Google’s Lighthouse test as if on a mid-range phone with a slow mobile connection: the middle result of three tests, run on 14 Oct 2026. Both home pages were measured.
Demo 1 · How we moved the content
From 1142 old pages to one checked collection
Select a step to see what it did. All numbers come from the real run.
Demo 2 · Instant search
Find any entry as you type
The reader's browser keeps the whole compendium, so results appear as you type, even offline after the first visit. This demo searches the real list of 1003 entry names and their other names. The live site also searches the entry text. The search on our home page looks at names only, so it can find fewer.
Loading the names…
Demo 3 · Broken links
A broken link is shown, never clicked
Links to other websites break over time. Every three months each one is checked automatically. A working link stays a link. A broken one becomes plain text with its old address, so the reader still sees where it pointed and never lands on an error page. This also applies to links inside entry text, not only to link lists.
What the reader sees
For the technically curious: what the checker records
The example link is from the original home page. Switch between the results to see both. In the first real check, one linked website was marked certainly dead (a score of 1.00) because its address no longer exists.
Demo 4 · Safe updates
Edits reach readers without breaking anything
Browsers keep a copy of the compendium so pages open quickly. When the site owner publishes an edit, a reader who already has the site open picks up the new version without seeing an error.
Press the button to publish an edit while a reader has the site open.
Offline readers keep the old version until they reconnect, then switch to the new one.
For the technically curious: the requests
Running cost
Why it runs on the free plan
Reading is free
Reading the compendium costs nothing, however many visitors come. Only one tiny check per visit counts towards the free allowance of 100,000 a day.
Heavy jobs run elsewhere
Preparing the data and checking links happen outside the web host, so the site stays inside its free limits.
A database for edits only
The site owner's edits are stored in a small database that readers never touch, so reading stays far inside the free limits.
No payment card
Nothing in the design needs a card on file.