Since its launch in 2006, Sneaker News has become the leading publication for news, release dates, and purchasing information for a rapidly growing global audience of sneaker enthusiasts. The brand serves over 20 million consumers a month across its channels. Sneakernews.com alone receives 7.5 million unique site visitors and 35 million page views each month.

High traffic infrastructure, faster load times with WordPress VIP

Sneaker News’ growing popularity began to hinder the site’s speed, performance, and security. Its outdated infrastructure was not equipped to handle the volume of pages, frequency of updates, or number of readers it was now tasked to serve. Heavy traffic increased pressure on an already unstable database. Security became a major risk. Non-uniform code structure restricted functionality and hampered speed.

To position themselves for continued success, Sneaker News needed a stable, secure platform on which they could build digital experiences at scale.

“Since moving to WordPress VIP, we have observed an increase in monthly visits along with lightning-fast load times and near-zero downtime.”

Yu Ming-Wu, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Sneaker News

Native functionality and custom themes

Sneaker News had been a client of WordPress VIP Silver agency partner Multidots since 2011. Multidots recommended a partnership with WordPress VIP to create a customized CMS with the power and flexibility to support their continued growth. Today, all of Sneaker News is run on WordPress VIP’s enterprise cloud platform.

The WordPress VIP customer success team handles all of the WordPress application management, security, scaling, and performance needs, so the Sneaker News team can focus on curating and managing engaging content.

The new site takes full advantage of WordPress functionalities like pages, posts, and categories to better organize content and create a smoother, more efficient workflow for the editorial team.

“With Multidots and the WordPress VIP team taking care of our site security, performance, and stability 24×7, I am able to focus more on publishing and reader engagement.”

Yu Ming-Wu, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Sneaker News

Multidots delivered a custom theme that syncs with the preexisting HTML database, which provides an enhanced user interface with zero loss of data. Customized plugins and integrations like the eBay API simplify the consolidation of affiliate ad revenues. New social sharing functionalities make it easier than ever to engage and grow readership.

The Release Dates section, which is the site’s most visited, is powered by WordPress REST APIs to handle frequent updates and heavy traffic. The Rest API delivers a seamless customer experience across the entire website and mobile app.

Key platform features include:

• Centralized Sneaker Repository Integration with WordPress REST APIs
• Custom theme supporting customized workflows
• Unified logic for streamlined content updates
• eBay API integration
• AMP implementation

Results

Since the re-platforming project, Sneaker News has enjoyed:

• Improved site load times on WordPress VIP—from 5.0s to 1.2s
• 65% increase in the editorial team’s operational efficiency
• 20% increase in page views
• Implementation of SEO best practices, with nearly 50% of visits derived from organic search
• Global Alexa rank increased by 1,418 positions in just three months after Go-Live
• Nearly zero downtime
• Seamless and uniform user experience across channels for effective engagement