WebCenter Customer Spotlight: Ancestry.com
- by me
Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist, Oracle WebCenter
Solution SummaryAncestry.com Inc is the largest for-profit genealogy company in the world and it operates a network of genealogical and historical record websites
focused on the U.S. and nine foreign countries, develops and markets
genealogical software, and offers a wide array of genealogical related
services. As of June 2012, the company provided access to more than 10
billion records, 38 million family trees, and 2 million paying
subscribers.
Their main business challenges were to improve time to market and agility to respond quickly to fast changing Internet waves while integrating with their existing content (4 PetaByte) and legacy systems.
Ancestry.com implemented Oracle WebCenter Sites as their Web Experience Management System for their landing pages and marketing micro sites, added dynamic sections to their existing websites and integrated the existing content and legacy systems through web services.
The Ancestry.com landing pages and marketing sites are now managed by the business team without any involvement of engineering resources. Managed content can quickly be added to existing pages without having to refactor the whole page and existing content (4 PetaBytes) is now served trough Oracle WebCenter Sites without having to migrate from existing systems.
Company OverviewAncestry.com Inc is a publicly traded Internet company (NASDAQ: ACOM) based in Provo, Utah, USA. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical and historical record websites
focused on the U.S. and nine foreign countries, develops and markets
genealogical software, and offers a wide array of genealogical related
services. As of June 2012, the company provided access to more than 10
billion records, 38 million family trees, and 2 million paying
subscribers.
Business ChallengesAncestry main business challenge was to respond quickly to fast changing Internet waves. Product marketing could not change Web site content without going through development. They needed dedicated developers just to support their marketing efforts.
Technical Requirements
Support current systems and environments - ASP.NET, MVC.NET, Java, JSP, PHP
Scalable and manageable for a world wide network
Marketing Requirements
Easy to enter content – Without having a degree in HTML
Scheduling of content – When is content visible to users
Product Requirements
Easy to manage content – See when content is out-of-date
Rotation of content – Producing new content as old content expires
Solution DeployedAncestry implemented Oracle WebCenter Sites as their Web Experience Management System to manage their landing pages and marketing micro sites. This sites are fully managed by their business team without involvement of any engineering resources.
The integration with their existing Web sites is done through Spot Management which allows the ability to add dynamic content to certain sections of a web page. The dynamic content is managed by Oracle WebCenter Sites.
The integration with the existing content (4 PetaBytes!) is done trough a custom content provider interface which allows to mix existing content with content from Oracle WebCenter Sites.
Business ResultsAncestry.com has achieved following impressive business results:
Landing pages and marketing sites are now managed by the business team without any involvement of engineering resources
Managed content can quickly be added to existing pages without having to refactor the whole page
Provide access to existing content (4 PetaBytes) without having to migrate from existing systems
Additional Information
Ancestry Webcast
Oracle WebCenter Sites
