Berzin Archives Year End Report 2016

2016 has been a year of transformation here at Berzin Archives. Over the last year, we’ve worked hard to build our new website studybuddhism.com, with a newly modernized design, format, interface and information architecture. We launched the new website on May 13, 2016, starting with 1323 of our 5660 articles in 6 of our 21 languages – English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, and Indonesian. We have published the rest of the material in an archive section, kept in the old format of berzinarchives.com. Gradually adding more material to these 6 language sections, with 112 new translations, by year’s end we had a total of 1,660 articles online in the new structure sections.

On the technical side, we have further modernized the website mechanics, introduced new homepage formats, increased the loading speed, unified our glossary and website services, and established a redirect strategy for over 800,00 pages. To increase our user base, we have started collaboration with top American, Brazilian and Russian Buddhist websites. Toward the end of 2016, we also started the lengthy process of migrating all the content from the archives section into the updated website. As a first step, we have had the interface, and new descriptions, abstracts and summaries translated into our remaining 15 languages.

As signs of success, we have seen:

• Readers spending 80% longer on the website and 75% longer reading articles.

• 5,500 core users, accessing our website several times a month.

• 281 of our articles ranked on the first page of Google Search.

• 2,200 subscribers to our newsletter.

• 3,300 fans on our new Facebook page.

Throughout the year, we have been producing video content for use on our social media channels (You Tube and Facebook) and on the website itself:

• Interviews with Serkong Tsenzhab Rinpoche, His Holiness the Sakya Trizin, His Holiness the Karmapa, Ringu Tulku, Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, Dr Alexander Berzin, and Dr. Alan Wallace.

• Our first animated video, How to Find Peace of Mind, which gathered over 23,000 views on Facebook.

• A four-part educational video course, entitled “Introduction to Buddhism,” led by Dr. Alexander Berzin, to be featured on the popular Buddhist website, Tricycle, in January 2017.

I wish to thank you personally for your continuing help and support. All of us at Berzin Archives wish you all a healthy and happy new year.