LitvakSIG is the primary internet resource for Lithuanian-Jewish ("Litvak") genealogy research worldwide. Their mission is to preserve Litvak heritage by discovering, collecting, documenting and disseminating information about the once vibrant Jewish community of Lithuania. The primary mission of a Research Group is to identify and collect data for that group’s territorial area of interest from available records for Lithuania from the Russian Empire Period (1795 to First World War) and the period of Independent Lithuania (1919-1940) including Vilna Guberniya.
LitvakSIG.org has been online since 1998 and has registered over 1.3 million site visits. Considering that the world’s first website was published in 1991, LitvakSIG.org has been around for a while. It was an honor for us to be selected as a company who got to re-design and re-build the website from the ground up.
LitvakSIG website was not in great shape at the time when we received logins and the Board’s blessing to perform a thorough inventory. Due to multiple additions and patches, Joomla framework was crumbling. Website administrators had trouble accessing many of the pages and the payment processing system, although set up through a reputable vendor, was not working.
For a full case study, please check out our blog post. As it can be seen from the screenshots and the actual live site, all the issues have been overcome by creating a completely new design and then ditching the framework in favor of a custom-built system.
The new LitvakSIG.org features responsive design, custom Content Management System (CMS), payment integration with Authorize.net and a multitude of custom-built modules. The website runs on a Virtual Private Server, which greatly increased its load time.
