Key points summary:
- The question: Is using AI to generate website code (‘vibe coding’) a risk when creating a professional website?
- The answer: Vibe coded websites can look aesthetically pleasing and function well, but they are often slow to load, contain hidden security issues, rank poorly in search engines, and suffer from technical errors – which is bad for SEO.
- The conclusion: Business owners put the security of their website and customers at risk if they rely on vibe coding. Whilst AI tools can be a great assistance in web design, professional websites perform better and rank higher in search engines when they are made by web design experts.
AI tools are opening new doors into the world of website design and development, and the term vibe coding is getting thrown around a lot at the moment. In essence, vibe coding means using AI to generate code according to how you want a website to be (i.e. ‘vibing’ a website into existence). Whilst vibe coding offers many exciting and intriguing possibilities, there is some concern about its safety when creating a professional website.
What is vibe coding?
Vibe coding is a term used to describe AI assisted web design. Instead of writing code themselves, users prompt AI to generate code based on the way they’d like their website to look, feel, and function. They can then test this code and prompt AI to refine it further to meet their requirements. Popular tools used in vibe coding a website to life include ChatGPT, Gemini, and GitHub Copilot.
Whilst vibe coding can produce websites with appealing aesthetics – palatable colour schemes, clean and modern layouts – there are a lot of pitfalls to creating websites in this way too:
- Technical issues: The biggest and most common problem with purely vibe coded websites is that, behind the pretty aesthetics, they have a lot of technical issues that can impact their performance both as a website and in search.
- Basic design and aesthetic: Whilst vibe coded websites can look clean and modern, they lack the originality and personality of websites with more person-led coding.
- Lack of scalability and complexity: The clean, basic design vibe coding excels at is only suited to simple websites; things can get messy when a business grows or changes and needs to alter page hierarchies, expand page content, add new pages, etc.
The drawbacks of vibe coding vs. traditional web development
1. Slow site speed
A common problem with vibe coded websites is they load slowly. This can be due to inefficiently written code, overly large and unoptimised images, uncompressed assets, and more missed opportunities for performance enhancement.
Why slow site speed is an issue
As a web design and digital marketing agency, we know slow site speed impacts both user experience and search performance. Search engines consider loading speed when ranking websites, and rank slow performing websites lower.
Visitors also expect a website to load quickly these days and are likely to leave your website quickly if it doesn’t load straight away (also known as ‘pogo-sticking’) – this is another thing search engines don’t like and punish websites for in their rankings.
2. Incomplete metadata
Open Graph metadata is the code that controls how your website displays when it is shared on social media. Also known as meta tags, these are a set of HTML tags that sit in every webpage’s header.
Open Graph meta data done right: How our website displays when shared on LinkedIn
Why incomplete meta data is an issue
When someone shares a link on social media, everything from the title to the preview image and description are controlled by metadata. If this is overlooked, as it is on many vibe coded websites, your website will display badly when shared on social media, even if the site looks fine when visited directly.
If links to your website on social media look unappealing – or even broken – they are likely to be ignored. Your business will miss out on many opportunities for discovery and social proof; and the trustworthiness of your business could be called into question.
At Cognique, we ensure every piece of metadata is complete and displays properly on the websites we build, so our clients never miss out on the potential for new customers to discover their business through social media.
3. Poor technical SEO
Good SEO starts with ensuring the basics are in place: meta descriptions of pages, optimised title tags, robots.txt files. Vibe coded websites often have generic meta descriptions and lack properly structured data.
Why poor technical SEO is an issue
Technical SEO is the groundwork which enables a digital marketing agency like us to deliver a successful SEO strategy. Without technical SEO essentials, even the most beautifully designed website will struggle to appear in relevant searches.
Structured data also helps search engines understand web content and rank websites accordingly. Vibe coded websites can look pretty and function properly, but if the technical elements aren’t set up properly, their discoverability will suffer.
4. Other common issues with vibe coded websites
- Website security: AI-generated code is notorious for overlooking security flaws that experienced developers would know to correct, leading to potential cybersecurity issues for businesses and their customers.
- Poorly structured content: Even visually pleasing vibe coded websites frequently have poorly structured content. Heading tags are often used inconsistently, or missed entirely. Proper structuring of content using the correct heading hierarchy (H1 to H4 etc.) is vital so search engines can understand the structure of your website, and index and rank it.
- Accessibility issues: Alt text is an essential part of any modern website; it makes your website accessible to users that use screen readers, and helps search engines index and understand your images. AI generated web code frequently overlooks this, impacting search traffic and excluding certain users.
