DoubleClick by Google

How I built the content management system for DoubleClick.

About

Google invited Beyond to rebrand DoubleClick’s visual identity and redesign doubleclick.com.

Build

The backend is built with Python, and Wagtail CMS is used for content management. To support Google security standards, the pages are served as static HTML files, and the CMS enforces security mechanisms (eg: strict CSP policy, 2-person content approval before publishing live).

Role

• Lead Backend Developer
• Responsible for planning and delivering the backend
• Provided estimates, scoping and technical oversight
• Traveled to NYC for a short time to collaborate on this project

Challenges

There was a few challenges related to this project, mostly related to security requirements.

• Limited technology options - For this client we were limited in what technologies we could use, selecting a different technology would add the risk of the project being delayed due to security concerns and reviews.
• Making Wagtail CMS admin secure - I had to modify the Wagtail CMS admin to be secure, this was a big ask since the admin part was not CSP friendly (see GitHub issue).
• Content approval before publishing - I had to add support in Wagtail CMS to allow content to be published if approved by another person.
• Serving static HTML Files - For security concerns, the pages were statically generated and deployed as a new Google App Engine version in a different GCP project. This approached, allowed us to have a fast and secure site, and deployments were atomic.

Learnings

An intriguing lesson I learned from this project was that the dynamic pages started to slow down because the developers had overlooked query optimization. This issue arose because the site, which was statically generated, had consistently provided fast loading times for users. 🤦‍♂️

This issue was later addressed (query optimizations + caching) since the publishing times started to increase significantly. 🚀

Results

• DoubleClick content editors loved the CMS.
• Later on, more immersive stories were added.

Media