May 2024 was a huge month in the near 30-year history of Samtec.com. We rolled out a massive main navigation and product hierarchy update, combined with a major back-end update and CSS framework update. We also continued the work with updating several of our APIs for increased performance and made some simple tweaks to our on-site search for an improved experience.
Here are the major updates to Samtec.com for May 2024.
Brand New Main Products Navigation
![solution blocks](https://blog.samtec.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/SBs.jpg)
The main navigation and page hierarchy that we ran for nearly a decade on Samtec.com has been permanently replaced by our new Solution Blocks hierarchy.
This update replaces the previous “Connectors, Cables, Optics, RF” links at the top of the navigation with a single “Products” link, which breaks down Samtec products into our six Solution Blocks.
The update does a far better of classifying our products into easier-to-understand product categories that fulfill a specific need.
Users can navigate down through each Solution Block by clicking any of the six under Products, or by scrolling to the bottom of the homepage where the links to several levels of the hierarchy also live.
In all, we rebuilt over 250 pages from scratch with several upgraded technologies and performance enhancements. We’ll write more about this update in an upcoming blog post.
For now, head to our Solutions Blocks page to explore the new hierarchy.
Brand New Back-End CMS System
![CMS system](https://blog.samtec.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/CMS-System.jpg)
Along with the above update, we also built a completely new CMS (Content Management System) to drive the content on all of the new pages, including page titles, descriptions, headings, features, images, product descriptions, hierarchy linkages and more. This system allows us to easily manage content updates on thousands of pages of the website without touching the code. It replaces a nearly decade-old system that was becoming outdated.
It makes website maintenance far easier and more efficient and also brings with it several performance enhancements with its more modern caching methods and lightweight code structure.
What is already a robust solution is only going to get better as we extend its reach across various other areas of the website. You won’t be able to see it in action because it lives behind the scenes, but basically, 90% of Samtec.com is driven by this system, so you’ll definitely be able to feel its presence.
First Major Release of New CSS Framework
![](https://blog.samtec.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/HDA-page.jpg)
You may have also noticed a slight design and appearance update with this release. On all of the new pages, and in a few other places throughout the website, we rolled out an updated CSS framework to replace an aging system that is no longer being updated.
This new system takes advantage of many modern design best practices and performance enhancements and provides maximum flexibility for our design team to continue building out Samtec.com.
We’ll continue to swap out this code over time as a long-term project, and will eventually be completely off the old system.
Again, this is a tough one to see because it’s so subtle, but you’ll definitely feel it, and you might even notice the differences if you have a keep eye.
Indexing Update to On-Site Search Results
![search results](https://blog.samtec.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/search-results.jpg)
We’ve also rolled out some initial updates to our on-site search to have better indexation of our content pages as well as our documentation. You can now see both of these areas loading more clearly and with better results.
We’ll continue working on the on-site Search experience up next and will roll out some major updates to it later this year. By the time we’re finished, the Samtec search experience will rival everything in the industry.
Coming Soon to Samtec.com
That does it for now. Thanks for being a loyal reader of The Samtec Blog.
Here is what we’re currently working on, and a few other updates that are coming soon!
- An overhaul of our Pricing and Delivery system
- A major update to our on-site Search experience
- A major update to our Order Status system
- A major update to our Sample Status system
- Several user-experience updates for major website applications
- Performance and speed improvements
- And more!
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