Centralizing 40+ Global Industrial Sites: A HubDB-Driven Migration from Kentico to HubSpot CMS
A global industrial mining firm was losing organic authority across 40+ regional Kentico microsites.
We moved their digital footprint onto HubSpot CMS. A dynamic HubDB architecture and cookie-based routing now manage regional product availability and complex Arabic RTL formatting.
Executive Summary
Context
A global industrial abrasive mining and distribution firm operates across the Americas, APAC, Europe, and the Middle East, where regional marketing had fragmented and website activity had no connection to the sales pipeline.
What We Built
We built a centralized, multi-lingual HubSpot CMS architecture. HubDB dynamically serves regional product variations and distributor data across 40+ global domains.
Tech Stack
- HubSpot CMS Hub (Tiers 1, 2, and 3)
- HubDB for dynamic product and distributor mapping
- Kentico (Legacy Source)
- GDPR-compliant routing workflows
Not a fit for organizations with a single-region presence or those with simple product catalogues that do not vary by geography or language.
The Challenge
More than 40 legacy microsites on Kentico had become unmanageable. Page sizes of 9.9MB were causing serious performance failures, and more than 52,000 unmanaged backlinks made a direct cutover risky. Each regional General Manager needed a distinct product catalogue, but the legacy system had no way to centralize those updates, so every change meant duplicating it by hand across sites.
The Arabic-language site added technical problems of its own: right-to-left (RTL) punctuation and text-wrapping bugs that standard HubSpot templates could not fix out of the box.
Our Approach
Our first plan was to build every global site at once. The volume of translations and regional product variances made that unworkable, so we moved to a tiered deployment. Tier 1, North America and Australia, launched first to set the architectural baseline; Tier 2, the translated sites, and Tier 3, the specialized microsites, followed.
HubDB became the single source of truth for the global product catalogue, which lets regional teams toggle product visibility to match local availability without a separate page build for each market. A region switcher based on browser language and a 30-day cookie routes each visitor to the correct localized site.
The catalogue schema keeps two names for every product: the internal system name used for the Salesforce sync and row identity, and the public display name used in the H1 and for search, which ended the naming mismatches that had broken lead routing. A routing column on each row decides the buy flow, so a row tagged for the Middle East swaps the contact form for a distributor map with no page-level override, and adding a product is one new row with regional availability boxes ticked.
This engagement is part of our migration work for mining & natural resources organisations.
Impact
40+ Kentico Sites on One HubSpot CMS
The 40+ regional Kentico microsites now run on one HubSpot CMS, with a HubDB-driven tiered architecture and Arabic RTL support.
Top 3 Rankings Up from 234 to 481
Top 3 keyword rankings increased from 234 to 481 between April 2023 and April 2024 as the site began meeting Core Web Vitals and SEO standards.
19,000+ Inactive Contacts Isolated
The migration isolated 19,000+ inactive contacts, which improved database performance and cut licensing costs.
Unified Global Presence
A centralized architecture replaced the fragmented Kentico sites. Lead routing is now standardized across all major global regions.
A centralized database structure maps products to specific regions: Region, then Country, then State. One module serves different content dynamically from that structure.
Custom browser-language logic redirects users based on their browser language. It remembers that choice for 30 days across sessions.
Custom CSS fixes handle Arabic punctuation and text wrapping, while HubDB table adjustments handle character alignment.
Workflows copy data from legacy "State" and "Country" properties into unified fields. That triggers accurate "Business Unit" routing for leads.
More than 40 Kentico microsites had no way to centralise product updates. Every change meant duplicating it by hand across sites. Now HubDB is the single source of truth for the global product catalogue. Regional teams toggle product visibility to match local availability, without building a page for each market. A region switcher based on browser language and a 30-day cookie sends each visitor to the right localised site.
FAQ
We use a centralized HubDB architecture. Product visibility toggles by region-specific identifiers. That means we don’t need 40+ cloned pages: a single template renders unique product lists based on the user’s regional cookie or IP.
A tiered deployment model, Tier 1, 2, and 3, works best for managing high translation volumes: launch the core markets first, then use a centralized database for localized content like product specs and distributor lists. That way, teams keep a unified brand while still allowing regional nuance.
