19 November, 2017

Written by Harry Roberts on CSS Wizardry.

Ten years ago today, a seventeen-year old Harry decided to register the domain
csswizardry.com. It was such a small and
inconsequential decision at the time: I only bought the domain because
NuBlue, a British hosting firm, was running
a promotional offer in which a .com domain and a year’s hosting was about £39 (I
actually had to use my mother’s credit card, because I wasn’t old enough to have
one of my own). As I clicked that checkout button, little did I know that that
simple purchase would be the defining part of the next decade of my life.

I chose the name CSS Wizardry because I knew I wanted to start a blog showcasing
CSS tricks and techniques, and I’d also just finished reading
Andy’s CSS
Mastery
which is a book that inspired me greatly. I actually loathe the name CSS
Wizardry now, but it’s stuck too well for me to change it: I guess it’s here to
stay. Incidentally, a lot of people think the name choice was making a play on
the whole Harry/wizard thing—it wasn’t.

Fast forward a decade, and that whimsical purchase has probably been the most
influential decision I ever made. What started off as an overly-confident
teenager’s foray into front-end development ultimately led to my first job,
a speaking career, and a full-time consultancy firm. I struggle to believe it,
sometimes.

Over the last ten years I’ve been fortunate enough to work for a number of
companies, both large and small, as
a salaried front-end developer; I’ve spoken and workshopped at over 85 public
events (and countless
other private ones); I was able to start my own consultancy business through
which I’ve worked with some truly amazing
clients; I’ve been able to travel the
world visiting over 35 different countries; I’ve met countless new people and
made many wonderful new friends; I’ve experienced more amazing things than
I feel I deserve. It’s been a phenomenal journey and I’m grateful for it every
single day. Truly, I’m the luckiest person alive.

As impersonal as it may seem through a blog post, I want to offer sincere thanks
every single person that’s joined me on this journey; no matter how much or how
little, you’ve all played a part. From colleagues, to managers, to bosses, to
clients, to conferences, and everyone in between: thank you.

But it’s been hard work. A lot of continued hard work. Writing over 200
articles, releasing open-source
projects, developing and sharing new
methodologies and techniques, is all just a small part of what’s made this all
possible. Looking back on ten whole years begins to put a lot of it into
perspective.

Bill Gates once famously said that…

[m]ost people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what
they can do in ten years.

The CSS Wizardry journey, it turns out, has been a long one. People often ask me
how I got to where I am, and how they can emulate it themselves. They’re often
disheartened to hear that it’s taken me a decade, and to them I typically repeat
a phrase I learned some time ago:

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

Having this website changed and shaped my career. If you don’t have a blog,
I urge you, start working on one this weekend. Your own blog, with your own
content, at your own domain. It might just change your life.

Facts and Figures

As CSS Wizardry is, first and foremost, a personal blog, it’s not as highly
trafficked as, say, a site like CSS Tricks might be. That said, here are some
interesting facts and figures ^{from the last decade:}

• There have been 8,033,982 visitors from 238 countries who have been
  responsible for 14,237,772 pageviews.
• The most highly trafficked single article has been Creating a pure CSS
  dropdown
  menu,
  taking 10.17% of the total pageviews.
• The most highly trafficked single day was 25 April 2013 with 34,374
  visitors. 74.25% of them were reading about
  Shame.css
• The most highly trafficked year was 2013, which was when I was writing
  with a much higher frequency.
• With 26.36% of total visitors, the US is the top location, followed by
  the UK (10.74%), and India (6.66%).
• I had one lonely visitor from North Korea.

• The ten fastest countries ^were:

  Country	Mean Page Load (sec.)
  Belize	0.72
  Montenegro	1.43
  Norway	1.45
  Finland	1.49
  Algeria	1.55
  Malta	1.64
  Luxembourg	1.71
  Switzerland	1.76
  Slovenia	1.81
  Hungary	1.86

• The ten slowest countries were:

  Country	Mean Page Load (sec.)
  Lesotho	122.24
  Cuba	104.29
  Ecuador	59.96
  Rwanda	55.08
  Nigeria	44.05
  Nepal	37.81
  Ethiopia	29.71
  China	19.41
  Cyprus	15.08
  St. Lucia	14.71