It starts as a small inconvenience a loading spinner that spins for 3 seconds, a PageSpeed score dipping into the orange zone until you realize it’s time to Convert WPBakery to Gutenberg.
Fast forward three years, and your website has become a dinosaur.
If you built your WordPress site between 2015 and 2020, you likely used a heavy page builder like WPBakery (formerly Visual Composer) or Divi. At the time, they were revolutionary. They allowed non-coders to drag and drop complex layouts.
But today, they are the silent killers of your SEO and user experience.
The symptoms are classic:
Your site takes 5+ seconds to load on mobile.
Your “DOM Size” is massive (too many HTML elements).
You cannot edit a page without the editor crashing or freezing.
This is what we call “Shortcode Bloat.” And the only cure is a “Plugin Detox” migrating your legacy page builder to native Gutenberg Blocks.
Here is why your old builder is slowing you down and the technical roadmap to modernizing your site without losing your design.
The Problem: Living in “Shortcode Hell”
When you look at your website, you see a beautiful landing page. When the server looks at your website, it sees this:
Plaintext
[vc_row][vc_column][divi_module_text]Content[/divi_module_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Every time a user visits a page, your server has to parse thousands of these shortcodes, convert them into HTML, load the massive JavaScript libraries required to style them, and then send the page to the user.
It is like packing a suitcase inside a box inside a crate just to ship a single letter.
WPBakery and Divi load assets globally. Even if you only use a “Slider” on the homepage, the code for that slider often loads on your “About Us” page, your blog posts, and your contact form. This unused CSS/JS kills your Fast WordPress Site potential.
The Solution: Native Gutenberg Blocks
Gutenberg (the Block Editor) is not just a new interface; it is a fundamental shift in architecture.
Unlike page builders, Gutenberg generates clean HTML. When you build a “Group” or “Column” in Gutenberg, it saves as:
HTML
<div class="wp-block-group">Content</div>
There is no processing overhead. The browser reads it instantly. This is why switching to Gutenberg is the single most effective way to jump from a PageSpeed score of 40 to 90+.
The Migration Roadmap: How We Do It Safely
Business owners fear this migration because they think, “If we disable WPBakery, the whole site breaks.”
They are right. If you just click “Deactivate,” your site becomes a wall of broken text. That is why we don’t just “switch it off.” We perform a Programmatic Migration.
Step 1: The Component Audit
We crawl your site to identify every module used.
Are you using standard “Text” and “Image” modules? (Easy to convert).
Are you using a “Custom Post Grid” or “Testimonial Slider”? (Requires custom dev).
We map every Divi/WPBakery module to a Gutenberg equivalent.
Step 2: Building Custom Blocks (The “Missing Link”)
Gutenberg has great core blocks, but it might lack the specific “Gold Border Pricing Table” your brand uses.
Instead of installing another plugin (which defeats the purpose), we build Custom Native Blocks using React or ACF Pro. These blocks look exactly like your old design but contain zero bloat. They load only the CSS they need, and only on the pages where they appear.
Step 3: Programmatic Content Parsing
For a site with 500+ blog posts, we don’t edit manually. We write scripts that parse the database content.
The script finds patterns like [vc_row] and replaces them with “. It strips away the proprietary wrapper code while preserving your text, images, and headings.
Step 4: The Clean Up
Once the content is converted, we strip the heavy page builder assets. We deregister the massive styles.css and scripts.js files that WPBakery was forcing on your users.
Suddenly, your page size drops from 3MB to 800KB.
Future-Proofing for WordPress 6.9
WordPress is evolving rapidly. With WordPress 6.9 and beyond, the ecosystem is moving entirely toward “Full Site Editing” (FSE).
Legacy page builders are becoming “compatibility layers” patches that sit on top of WordPress rather than working with it. By sticking with Divi or WPBakery, you are fighting the current. By moving to Gutenberg, you are future-proofing your stack for the next decade of web standards.
The ROI of “Boring” Code
This migration doesn’t look like a redesign. Your site will look exactly the same to the user.
But to Google? It’s a brand new site.
Core Web Vitals: You pass the “LCP” (Largest Contentful Paint) threshold.
Crawl Budget: Google bots can crawl more of your pages because they load faster.
Mobile Experience: The CPU usage on cheap Android phones drops, reducing bounce rates.
Conclusion: Stop Carrying Dead Weight
You wouldn’t run a 2026 business on Windows 95. Why run your website on 2015 architecture?
A “Plugin Detox” is the digital equivalent of decluttering your office. It is painful to start, but once it is done, everything runs smoother, faster, and cheaper.
Is your site trapped in shortcode hell? 👉 Get a Free Site Performance & Bloat Analysis We’ll show you exactly how much weight your page builder is adding to your load time.
