Ben Garves

Redesign Page TemplateEpic

The epic for Topic Page v2: rebuilding Udemy’s Topic pages on new engineering architecture, with experiences that help visitors learn about a topic, trust Udemy, find the right course, and become more likely to buy a course or subscription.

CWV CleanupEpic

An epic to improve Core Web Vitals on five of Udemy’s top-level pages: engineering spikes into each page’s bottlenecks, then targeted optimizations, possibly to JavaScript loading and API calls, without hurting the organization’s ability to serve dynamic, experiment-optimized content.

Sitemap RefactorEpic

An epic to refresh Udemy’s out-of-date sitemaps so bots need far fewer requests to process them, new and updated pages are discovered and indexed faster, missing high-value pages are added, and the infrastructure is simpler to maintain and report on.

Update robots.txt FileTask

A one-point task to replace udemy.com’s robots.txt with a revised version that lets Baidu crawl at a limited rate, lets LinkedIn’s crawler reach completion certificates that the catch-all rules block, and fixes the faceted-URL wildcard while removing redundant rules.

Add lastmod to SitemapTask

A task to add lastmod dates to Udemy’s sitemaps so crawlers can tell which pages are new or changed and prioritize crawling them, following Google’s sitemap documentation.

Tool Configuration UpdateEpic

An epic to update Udemy’s OneTrust cookie-consent configuration, which defined behavior for tens of thousands of individual URLs instead of applying rules domain-wide, leaving a consent script far larger than the epic’s target sizes and inflating page file sizes.

De-Index Homepage CannibalsStory

A story to stop Udemy’s sign-in and logout URLs from ranking for homepage keywords: first point their canonical at the homepage, give Google two days to see the change, then mark them noindex.

Page-Level noindex for Non-Pagination Faceted URLsStory

A story to add a robots noindex tag to Topic, Category and Subcategory URLs that carry non-pagination parameters, such as UTM or coupon codes, so they stop competing with the original page in Google, while URLs whose only parameter is pagination stay indexable.

Filter x FilterStory

A follow-up story to fill the new FilterXFilter module on the 27 Topic Page Refresh test pages with a section title, description and four linked cards, so visitors can read and use them. The content was delivered as a JSON file.

Related SearchesStory

Populates the Related Searches module on the 27 pages in the Topic page refresh test with a section title, description and titled links, so visitors have real copy and links to read and interact with.

Related CertificationsStory

Adapts the In-Demand Certifications module from Udemy’s Cert-Browse pages to the new v2 Topic page template and populates it wherever a topic has relevant certifications, so users can wayfind to cert opportunities.

BlogStory

Populates the Topic page blog module on 19 of the 27 test pages so users can dig deeper into a subject, hiding the module, or its unused slots, where a page has no relevant posts or fewer than four.

Relevant SkillsStory

A follow-up story that populates the newly adapted Relevant Skills module on the 27 Topic test pages, so learners can see how a topic relates to other learning opportunities through courses requiring relevant skills.

Tool ExplorationSpike

A research spike to find where Udemy’s log files live, get access to them, and plan and estimate a pipeline (60 days of history, then daily uploads, with alerts when delivery fails) for feeding them into the OnCrawl Log File Analyzer.

Localization ResearchSpike

A spike to decide whether Udemy should declare hreflang in XML sitemaps or in each page’s head, so crawlers can see the breadth of its translated and localized content, and to open follow-up tickets for the chosen approach.

Sitemap Refactor ResearchSpike

A research spike toward a new sitemap for Udemy’s publicly available multimedia so crawlers can index it better: find where a list of videos lives, choose the best way to pull it, and write the tickets for the build.

Load Strategy ResearchSpike

A spike to keep the Noto Sans font, a 981 KB file because of the Japanese characters it supports, while sparing most visitors the download, by weighing unicode-range subsetting, content- or language-based loading and lazy loading, ending in follow-up tickets.

Filter x Filter ModuleStory

Asks engineering to build a new Topic page module of four pre-filtered course-collection cards, so visitors can jump straight to a filter preset that matches their needs. Includes design specs for desktop and mobile, responsive wrapping rules and click behavior.

Related Searches ModuleStory

Builds a reusable “Related Searches” module for the 27-page test of the redesigned Topic page, giving visitors a set of related search links as navigational options when the current page doesn’t fit their needs. Includes desktop and mobile design specs.

Relevant Skills ModuleStory

Adapts the homepage’s “Skills to transform your career and life” module for the v2 Topic page template, giving learners a tabbed carousel of top courses so they can wayfind to popular items without needing to search, sort or filter.

Popular Instructors ModuleStory

Adapts the Popular Instructors module to the v2 Topic page template, redesigning the instructor cards to show each instructor’s specialty and link to their topics of expertise, so learners can find an instructor who covers their course needs.

Related Certifications ModuleStory

Builds a reusable “Related Certifications” module for v2 Topic pages, loosely based on Udemy’s In-Demand Certifications module, so visitors to topics where certification is available can wayfind directly to certification topic pages and cert-oriented courses.

Related Blog Articles ModuleStory

Builds a reusable “Blog Articles” module for Topic pages that surfaces Udemy blog content about a topic, so visitors who want to learn more than the page covers can wayfind to the blog.