Sorry, should've specified. These were explicitly for front end developers, not full stack or back-end. I hardly would expect a back end developer to have a decent website, as that's not their forte. However, it's great if you can pass a front end coding interview but if you don't have any personal projects you can speak about, even something as small as a simple jQuery tic tac toe game or anything of the matter it's harder to know if you just studied the questions or actually understand the design patterns.

Granted I'm not going to fail someone on an interview who appears competent, can explain Frontend technologies well and answers questions correctly. It's just more comforting to have both. As we all know, theory doesn't equal real life in many situations.