The present invention is a method, system and apparatus for modifying a server page to reduce the cost of incorporating a custom tag in the server page. Specifically, the method can include the step of modifying program code translated from a server page to replace at least one method defined in the program code and corresponding to a custom tag with an optimized method defined for the custom tag. The modifying step further can include the step of modifying the program code prior to compiling the program code into a directly callable program object. Alternatively, the modifying step further can include the step of modifying the program code by modifying byte code produced by compiling the program code.