Creating a Static-Site Search with 11ty Serverless and Algolia

Accepting user input on a static site is a tricky topic. It’s one of the main arguments against the idea of the Jamstack. When all you have is a server that sends HTML and no server-side processing, accepting user input usually ends up relying on client-side code to fill any need for user input. Patterns such as adding comments, like buttons, and search engines are all often dependent on frontend solutions.

While these frontend solutions work, they can often lead to gaps in accessibility, site performance, or search engine optimization. Since they rely on JavaScript, any system that doesn’t support JavaScript or doesn’t fully support it will not be able to access these solutions. For instance, Algolia has truly amazing and easy-to-use JavaScript libraries to provide powerful search features for a website. However, if a user doesn’t have access to JavaScript, they get no search functionality...