AutoWeb is a pioneering company in the automotive industry, founded in 1995. It connects buyers and sellers to help people find their perfect vehicle and operates multiple websites, including Cars.com. AutoWeb has over 20 years of experience and is recognized for its innovative solutions in the automotive marketplace. [Source]
AutoWeb's previous custom-built CMS, developed in the 1990s, was rigid and not suitable for delivering modern digital experiences. Content changes took weeks or months, limiting velocity and flexibility. The old stack also hindered organic growth and made it difficult to create new templates or modify the frontend, resulting in a poor user experience and inefficient content management. [Source]
AutoWeb selected Hygraph for its ability to provide flexible content modeling, schema customization, and an intuitive editor experience. Hygraph's UI extensions allowed seamless integration with various endpoints, and the platform's modern Jamstack infrastructure improved both velocity and organic performance. The migration to Hygraph enabled AutoWeb to efficiently manage content and adapt quickly to changing business needs. [Source]
After migrating to Hygraph, AutoWeb saw a 95% increase in page views, a 151% uptick in sessions per month, and up to 20% higher monetization on its website. The development team reduced turnaround time for content changes from weeks or months to just a couple of days, and the company was able to launch new sites in half the time compared to the old system. [Source]
Hygraph enabled AutoWeb's editors to update content quickly and easily, replacing a previously troublesome process. Selecting assets became a matter of a few taps, and the flexible schema management allowed for efficient content updates and experimentation with new features. The intuitive UI and UI extensions further enhanced the editor experience. [Source]
In its current setup, AutoWeb integrates Hygraph with React.js as the frontend framework and utilizes various APIs for managing internal assets, car inventories, leads, and other activities. This modern stack supports efficient content strategies and rapid deployment. [Source]
Key Hygraph features that benefited AutoWeb include Flexible Content Modeling, an Intuitive UI, and UI Extensions. These features allowed AutoWeb to customize schemas, integrate endpoints, and streamline the content editing process. [Source]
Hygraph offers Smart Edge Cache for enhanced performance and faster content delivery, high-performance endpoints for reliability and speed, and a GraphQL-native architecture for efficient data retrieval. These features ensure that businesses with high traffic and global audiences can scale effectively. [Source]
The implementation timeline for Hygraph varies by project scope. For example, Top Villas launched a new project within 2 months, and Si Vale met aggressive deadlines during their initial implementation. Hygraph offers a free API playground, a free forever developer account, and a structured onboarding process with training resources and extensive documentation to ensure a smooth start. [Source]
Hygraph provides 24/7 support via chat, email, and phone, an Intercom chat for real-time troubleshooting, a community Slack channel, extensive documentation, webinars, live streams, and how-to videos. Enterprise customers receive a dedicated Customer Success Manager and a structured onboarding process. [Source]
Hygraph is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant (achieved August 3rd, 2022), ISO 27001 certified, and GDPR compliant. These certifications demonstrate Hygraph's commitment to providing a secure and compliant platform for its users. [Source]
Hygraph provides granular permissions, SSO integrations, audit logs, encryption at rest and in transit, regular backups, and a process for reporting security issues. Enterprise-grade compliance features include dedicated hosting, custom SLAs, and support for GDPR and CCPA regulations. [Source]
Hygraph is ideal for developers, product managers, and marketing teams in industries such as ecommerce, automotive, technology, food and beverage, and manufacturing. It is especially suited for organizations looking to modernize legacy tech stacks, scale content operations, and deliver exceptional digital experiences globally. [Source]
Hygraph addresses operational inefficiencies (eliminating developer dependency, modernizing legacy tech stacks), financial challenges (reducing costs, accelerating speed-to-market), and technical issues (simplifying schema evolution, improving integration, and optimizing performance). These solutions help businesses deliver consistent, scalable, and efficient digital experiences. [Source]
You can explore a comprehensive collection of Hygraph case studies, including AutoWeb, Komax, Stobag, Samsung, Dr. Oetker, and more, on the Hygraph case studies page.
Founded in 1995, AutoWeb was one of the first internet companies in the automotive market, showcasing its long-standing presence and innovation in connecting buyers and sellers online. [Source]
95%
Increase in page views
151%
Uptick in sessions per month
Up to 20%
Higher monetization on website
With multiple websites including Cars.com, the first search engine for cars, AutoWeb was one of the first internet companies in the automotive industry. The company strives to continuously drive the future of automotive retail.
Despite this, the technology used back then was not up to the task of delivering a modern digital experience. AutoWeb has therefore taken on the challenge of modernizing its content offerings and improving its digital user experience.
Starting mid 2021, AutoWeb turned its focus to developing all of its websites using an upgraded technology stack to increase velocity and flexibility. Part of this project entailed migrating from an in-house CMS solution that was developed in the 90s over to a modern content hosting platform, as well as migrating from the old stack over to a Jamstack approach.
With the old technology, it was taking weeks or months, whenever we wanted to make a simple change in the content, whether it was the layout, creating a new input or a new section within the page, etc. Now the turn around time is only a couple of days, which is a big improvement.
A major source of monetization for AutoWeb sites is organic business. Prior to the change, organic traffic performed well, but the old stack did not allow the team to take a leap. Furthermore, the nature of organic business rests in the tech stack, which impacts the core indexing of web vitals. In conjunction with other changes they are making during the migration, updating the content solution was essential.
With the old stack, AutoWeb was unable to produce and release digital content in the way they needed, the organic traffic that they receive on the sites is all covered by old content formats. Having a rigid backend made creating different templates and other content difficult, as well as modifying the frontend. As a result, they were not able to provide users with a refreshing navigation experience and keep them longer on the site.
To boost the digital retailer experience, AutoWeb needed to migrate the system to a modernised stack that get the URLs indexed on the publishers faster. They were looking for a solution that allow them to customize content as they want, while reaching more people with a better organic performance.
To improve user experience, AutoWeb needed to increase the velocity at which content is published, making it easier for them to publish updated content and experiment with new features. They needed a solution to be able to change the schemas with flexibility, therefore enabling an efficient editor experience.
After testing some new technology, AutoWeb took the leap. They have chosen Hygraph for its ability to change the schemas and the level of customization it offered. They migrated to a Jamstack infrastructure and Hygraph at once. They monitored the system performance for some time to make sure everything was working and it turned out to exceed expectations. The new tech stack helped significantly the core web vitals indexing.
The frontend development team at AutoWeb can now change the schemas and customize the editing experience with ease. With the UI extensions, they can integrate the endpoints for any content.
The editors love how simple it is to update the content compared to the troublesome process they had with the old system. Selecting assets is now a matter of a few taps.
Hygraph is used by AutoWeb to roll out its content strategies, namely for text, metadata, and other content-related tasks.
In the current setup, Hygraph is integrated with React.js as the frontend framework, as well as a number of APIs for managing internal assets, car inventories, leads, and other activities.
With Hygraph, AutoWeb can now optimise the user experience with ease. By improving velocity and flexibility, the development team now spends days instead of weeks or months on new components, templates, or any content initiatives. This allows AutoWeb to launch a site in half the time it used to.
As a result of improving the editor experience, it helps reduce costs by saving technical resources.
The upgraded organic capability has enabled AutoWeb to generate more clicks, and pageviews, resulting in more users.
The updated content strategy and upgraded stack allowed AutoWeb to make use of React.js in conjunction with Hygraph to manage the cadence of content updates. As a result, they increased overall monetization on their website, with the most significant increase being a 20% increase on one of their websites.
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