Website Relaunch - Done Ryte!

About HORNBACH 

HORNBACH, a German company with a proud heritage dating back to 1877 in the South Palatinate region, has firmly established itself as a leader in the home improvement industry. With a strong presence in nine European countries, HORNBACH operates an extensive network of over 170 garden and home improvement stores. The company is home to a dedicated workforce of more than 25,000 individuals. Recognized as one of the major players in the European home improvement market, HORNBACH has also ventured into online retail with its own web stores in nine European countries. Furthermore, Interconnected Retail serves as a crucial pillar of HORNBACH's overarching business strategy.

A relaunch without disasters? Possible - if you do it Ryte! 

HORNBACH Baumarkt AG has undergone a relaunch in its nine country-specific online shops in 2022 and 2023. In addition to implementing a new shop system, a complete restructuring of the URL structure was necessary. With over 200,000 products available on the online shop, hundreds of category pages, and a substantial amount of guide content, this presented a significant challenge. Furthermore, the imminent arrival of the gardening season added extra pressure on the SEO team. Lastly, it was crucial for the site to operate smoothly by the start of the season.

The in-house SEOs at HORNBACH explain that they were aware that each relaunch carried the risk of losing rankings and visibility. They had thorough discussions with management beforehand. However, they wanted to limit the negative impact. Given the vast number of URLs, they required a tool that could assist them during the relaunch. They didn't take much time to select Ryte: "We have known Ryte for a while and have also used the previous version. With the introduction of the Ryte platform and our switch to the new system, our analysis and monitoring capabilities have improved!"

When the schedule and preparations for the first country relaunch were completed, the Ryte platform came into play. The SEO team utilized the platform post-relaunch to monitor ranking changes, potential errors, or duplicate content. The system was incrementally developed during the relaunches in different countries until the complete relaunch of the German online store was eventually executed.

The Ryte crawls provided valuable data for the SEO team. The experts were able to check if they had overlooked anything, and they could immediately identify changing metrics. The in-house SEOs said, 'That was the biggest impact of Ryte for us. "We had reliable data and could react quickly to errors. The relaunch not only made it more transparent for us, but also for the management. We were able to demonstrate possible changes with valid data from Ryte, but above all, show that the relaunch worked and the ranking losses communicated in advance were within the expected range and limited in time."

The HORNBACH SEO team has found the Ryte Dashboard to be a crucial tool for monitoring errors and deriving actionable insights. Moreover, the team emphasizes the significance of reports on Duplicate Content, internal redirects, and 404 pages. What makes Ryte exceptional for the HORNBACH team is its ability to segment all reports, enabling a step-by-step analysis and enhancement of individual segments.

After the relaunch, the Anomaly Report from Ryte provided important Google data. This enabled the SEO team to identify possible anomalies in the ranking and quickly make adjustments after the relaunch. The old URL system was compared to the new one, revealing trends. “We quickly noticed that the old URLs were losing clicks, while the new ones were increasing at the same time. It is this transparency that makes Ryte the appropriate relaunch tool.”

Working with Ryte during the relaunch proved to be a major success for the HORNBACH SEO team. The team effectively utilizes the Ryte platform in their day-to-day SEO work. Ryte is instrumental for the team in testing and monitoring new SEO strategies. It is particularly valuable for the team to be able to conduct tests in small, targeted segments. Ryte's crawls provide the necessary data foundation to support this approach.

With the relaunch, Ryte has demonstrated its effectiveness. The platform is a cohesive element for quality assurance and monitoring, including the underperformer report. Additionally, the content team relies on the assistance provided by Ryte. And one thing is already certain for the HORNBACH SEO team: "A company like HORNBACH, which always places website user experience at the forefront, enthusiastically utilizes a tool that encapsulates WUX in its DNA. We are thrilled to continue collaborating with Ryte, the reports, and an exceptional support team in the future!"