WP ENGINE ENTERPRISE PLATFORM
WP Engine Powers Oxford University Press Digital Modernization
Stuck with an end-of-life CMS, renowned global publisher Oxford University Press partnered with WP Engine to consolidate digital properties, boost performance, and lay the groundwork for future expansion.
Site:
Industry:
Publishing & Higher Education
“Oxford University Press have always valued our relationship with WP Engine. Having a passionate team with in-depth knowledge of your environment, what it offers, and the improvements you can make. It's really good.”
— Gareth Brading, Functional Consultant & Platform Manager, Oxford University Press
127%
increase in site visitors
88%
increase in active users
Our Customer
For over 500 years, Oxford University Press (OUP) has been pushing the boundaries of education and research. OUP publishes the highest-quality academic and educational resources and research around the globe. From monographs to music, textbooks to children’s books, they have titles that span cultures, classrooms, and languages. Beyond traditional publishing, Oxford University Press finds innovative ways to support the needs of learners, making knowledge accessible to all.
Partnership with WP Engine
OUP’s relationship with WP Engine has evolved over many years, beginning with separate accounts for different divisions. Recognizing the inefficiency, OUP consolidated its properties under one global account to streamline management and billing. The partnership is defined by a close, collaborative relationship with WP Engine’s Premium Plus support team, which provides proactive security suggestions, deep institutional knowledge, and reliable service that OUP has come to trust.
The Challenge
OUP’s core digital properties, including its main eCommerce websites, were running on Alterian, an outdated and end-of-life Content Management System (CMS). An internal security audit flagged the platform as a significant risk, as it was no longer supported by its original developers.
Beyond the security concerns, the CMS was notoriously difficult to use. Described as "clunky" and "monolithic," it required extensive training and even manual HTML coding for simple updates, creating major bottlenecks for OUP’s marketing teams. The organization needed to migrate dozens of sites—from informational blogs to large regional websites—to a modern, secure, and user-friendly platform that could handle significant traffic and pave the way for future eCommerce functionality.
The Solution
After evaluating several options, OUP chose to standardize on WordPress, hosted on WP Engine’s enterprise-grade platform. This solution offers the best balance of budget and functionality, and more importantly, sets OUP up to grow and evolve over time. The migration was planned as a multi-phased project, starting with self-contained, informational sites to build momentum and demonstrate success.
A key early win was the migration of OUP's gateway to their global offer, corp.oup.com, from Alterian to WordPress. This was followed by more complex projects, including the large-scale migration of india.oup.com. Throughout this process, OUP worked closely with the WP Engine support team. This team provided proactive technical guidance on security and optimization, building a trusted relationship that became a cornerstone of the project's success.
The Results
The move to WP Engine yielded significant improvements across the board. The newly migrated corporate homepage is faster, more reliable, and features a modern design. The successful relaunch of corp.oup.com has earned high praise from OUP’s internal stakeholders.
Internal teams, such as the one in India, have lauded the new WordPress backend for its ease of use compared to the cumbersome Alterian system.
Key results include:
- Improved performance: OUP reports a significant increase in page speed, with virtually no complaints about performance since migrating.
- Enhanced accessibility: The move has facilitated a new focus on accessibility, with OUP seeing steady increases in its WCAG 2.1 AA compliance scores across its sites.
- A foundation for the future: The success of these initial migrations has provided the confidence and a clear roadmap for OUP to tackle its next major project: migrating its massive eCommerce websites to WP Engine.
Most importantly, the partnership with the WP Engine team has provided immense value. Gareth Brading notes that the relationship goes beyond simple hosting; the team’s deep knowledge of OUP’s environment and proactive support have been critical to their continued success.