Results on a plate!
Searching millions of records from the DVLA and private plate sales? No Problem :)
Become THE Number Plate Search Engine
Now, if you don’t know the number plate market, we can tell you now that it can be lucrative, and there is some big competition out there. That hasn't phased CNP though — when they came to us they knew what they wanted, but they just needed the right people to get them there. Yes, that's right, they choose us!
Standing out from the crowd
The one thing they didn’t want to do is look anything like their plate-selling market competitors. They wanted to stand out from the crowd with a custom design that shouted brilliance, so we had a go, and would you believe it? We nailed it first time!
30 million plates — so little time
We went to great lengths to keep the website responsive and fast. By optimising the way we store plates in the database, we drastically reduced the time it took to do complex plate searches. We also developed an intelligent automated caching system to further improve response time when performing common searches, and reduce the running costs of the system.
DVLA or Private Sales —
we intelligently handled the lot
We designed and built this system to seamlessly update from the DVLA, receiving updates constantly. The system can also take data from any numberplate retailer who wants to be part of the Compare Number Plates network, and display price comparisons.
Bespoke letter, number & name comparison algorithm —
say that 10 times!
This system is pretty smart. It knows that a name like Robert is related to Rob, Robbie, Bob, etc. First, it searches for those alternatives, but that's not all! It also knows that some numbers look like letters, for example, the letter A looks like the number 4, so it also dynamically creates a list of possible alternatives that conform to numberplate patterns, then checks the database for any matches. When it it displays the results, it also orders them by best match first.
The Results —
All quiet — it must be going well!
After the site went live, it all went a bit quiet. It turns out after we gave them a quick call that they were just flat out and incredibly busy as the site was performing, well, brilliantly, so they had nothing to say, for once ;)
Just playing CNP!
When a client takes you all out for dinner
you're doing something well!
We would like to thank CNP for taking us all out — top evening had! We are also happy to report that we are now looking at their new iPhone app, which is something we were discussing at the start of the project. We know that this will become both a useful and fun application to have on your iPhone — not to mention a fantastic marketing and data conversion tool for CNP. Looking forward to the next meal when that project goes live too!
