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Community contributions
linexo was the first production use of the Sites module suite, which was developed and substantially extended in this project with significant input from the WERTGARANTIE Group. Two modules that grew out of ongoing work, Sites robots.txt and Sites Diff, are available on drupal.org. Improvements also went into Slots, Paragraph Block, Form Decorator, Rabbit Hole Links and Component Behaviors. WERTGARANTIE Bike GmbH is visible on drupal.org with its own contributions.
When WERTGARANTIE Bike GmbH launched its new bicycle and e-bike insurance brand linexo, the deadline was fixed: the Eurobike trade fair. Six months later, 14 websites went live on a single Drupal platform. Since then, the editorial team has grown the portfolio to 24 sites entirely on its own, without developers, deployments or code.
Results at a glance
- 14 websites live on time for Eurobike 2024, built from scratch in six months without any previous web presence
- 24 websites today: two country sites plus microsites, every site added after launch rolled out by editors themselves
- Campaign messages placed by editors in context, for example an offer shown only on magazine articles about e-bikes
- Independent accessibility audit against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, levels A and AA, with the approved improvements applied once for all current and future sites
- Platform run and hosted entirely in-house by the client
- First place in the E-Commerce category at the Splash Awards Germany and Austria 2024
One platform, many addresses
All 14 launch sites run on one installation, each with its own domain, subdomain or path:
Country sites
Retailer portals
Microsites Germany
- linexo.de/antragsstrecke
- linexo.de/deine-services
- linexo.de/bikecenter
- linexo.de/leasing
- linexo.de/stadtradeln
- app.linexo.de
- partner.linexo.de/allrid-e
- partner.linexo.de/bidex
Microsites Austria
About the organisation
linexo is the bicycle and e-bike insurance brand of the WERTGARANTIE Group, an established German specialist insurer. It covers bikes and e-bikes against theft, fall damage and technical faults, for private customers and bicycle retailers. A dedicated in-house linexo team with its own project management, editorial staff and developers runs the brand's digital presence.
About the project
Goal
Launch a new brand with a complete website portfolio on a fixed trade fair date, and let it open new markets and campaigns later without commissioning development each time.
Challenge
- A new brand with no existing system, many sites at once and a deadline that could not move
- Future country and campaign sites without configuration changes or deployments
- Decentralised editorial teams and content shared across sites from day one
- A newly assembled client team that was to work independently after launch
Solution
- Foundation first. After an extensive discovery workshop, the team decided against setting up the most important sites one by one, which would have shown results sooner. The first weeks went into the shared foundation instead. An older multi-domain approach for Drupal was evaluated and rejected as outdated.
- New sites without developers. All content lives in one shared pool. A new site needs only a few settings: title, domain and content selection. Permissions per site keep editorial teams out of each other's way. Shared content such as the legal notice can vary locally, and the retailer site shows its own prices.
- Campaigns controlled by editors. Editors place content areas anywhere on a page that react to conditions they define, such as the country site or a topic. Texts that used to be technical configuration, such as the headers of content listings, became editable too.
- Design choices without development requests. The frontend is built from components in a living style guide. Editors choose options such as a component's background colour themselves, within the brand design the client created.
- Accessibility that scales. When Germany's law implementing the European Accessibility Act took effect, linexo commissioned an independent audit covering 55 success criteria. The teams prioritised the findings together and implemented the approved measures, including full keyboard operation, visible focus indicators, closed contrast gaps and a cleaner semantic structure. Because every site is built from the same components, each fix applies everywhere.
Timeline
Work started in January 2024; the sites went live on 3 July 2024 for Eurobike. Since then, the platform has moved to the latest version of Drupal and keeps gaining features.
Outcome
- The deadline was met, with all planned sites live on time
- The in-house team runs and extends the platform, with erdfisch advising and co-developing
Why Drupal was chosen
For linexo, the question was answered quickly: the new brand would build on Drupal.
- Central content, local variation. Sharing content across many domains while each site keeps its own variations, with clear permissions per site, is a core strength of Drupal.
- No headless detour. The sites were to share both design and content. Instead of a decoupled setup with complex interfaces, the team used what Drupal provides out of the box: user management, content management and a large community ecosystem. One system also means one maintenance effort.
- Existing know-how. The WERTGARANTIE Group had built up Drupal expertise over years, and the new brand team could draw on it.
- Open source without lock-in. Knowledge and operation were meant to stay in-house, with no dependency on a single vendor.
- Ready for new markets. Multilingual support and a structured content model were set up from the start, so further countries can be added when needed.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
Key modules/theme/distribution used:
- Sites provides the multi-domain architecture: one installation, many domains, new sites created in the user interface without deployment. Its submodules handle content overrides, language, path aliases, path prefixes, menus, redirects and XML sitemaps per site. A URL parameter lets editors preview shared content in the context of each domain without logging in again. Since launch, revision-based content overrides and settings inherited by subsites have been added.
- Slots places editorial content in context-defined positions and makes former configuration texts editable.
- Linkit was integrated so editors can link to content across sites.
- The frontend uses Single Directory Components with a Storybook living style guide, so quality is checked once per component.
