Annual Report 2018

Summary

Letter from the CEO

2018 was a difficult year, with lows and highs. In the end, we came out stronger and better set up to fulfil our mission. The year started well until in March 2018, we lost about 15% of our web traffic due to a Google algorithm update -- the first time we've been hit negatively. At the same time, we decided to remove in-banner video ads from our website to improve user experience, which reduced revenue on top of the traffic reduction. Financially, 2018 was a loss.


At the same time, we made progress on other fronts. We attended several conferences which helped us formulate our vision for how we can help improve history teaching. We started producing articles on the Middle Ages. We partnered up with several other organizations that shared our vision. We created a new search engine for our site. Our editorial team greatly improved its processes to improve the quality of our articles and we focused on speeding up our website and optimizing it for search.


Financial difficulties are part of running any organization and we are happy to have overcome them as well as we have. We've ended up stronger and able to tackle big projects for 2019.


A big thank you to all our supporters, donors and members who help make this whole project possible. 


Keep reading below for more details...


Jan van der Crabben, CEO

Statistics

19.8 Million Readers

All around the world, 19.8 million individual people visited Ancient History Encyclopedia to learn more about our past. Even though this is not much higher than the previous year, it's still a record number for our publication. 

Education

We are aware of 3378 schools, universities and libraries who used our website in 2018. That's nearly three times as many as in 2017, so we're very happy with the result. Because of this, 2019 will be very much focused on education. 

700,000 Followers

Our social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr grew to an impressive 700,000 followers. That's 100,000 more than last year, so that is a result to be proud of.


Our weekly email newsletter also surpassed 10,000 subscribers. 

2,101 Articles

This year, we broke the 2000 articles and definitions mark! Our authors and editors published 385 new articles on the website.


We also published the highest number of images in any year, with 1819 new additions. 

Highlights

UNESCO Heritage Lab (Paris)

Ancient History Encyclopedia co-sponsored and attended UNESCO Heritage Lab, which was held for the European Heritage Days at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France. For the first time since its existence, UNESCO opened its doors to the public.


The event explored all the different ways in which technology can be used to promote, preserve, access and educate about cultural heritage all around the world. It was attended by thousands of people who viewed over 30 exhibitors. We deepened our partnership with the Canadian company Time Passport and found new partners in the Australian company Lithodomos VR.


You can watch our video of the event, too! 

Collision (New Orleans)

Ancient History Encyclopedia attended Collision, a North American technology conference. We presented our company as well as our educational vision to other technology companies, advisors and thought leaders. The experience allowed us to better understand our priorities and to better focus our efforts. We also made new partnerships, most notably Time Passport, a Canadian augmented reality cultural heritage company. 

REACH (Budapest)

We presented our work at the opening conference of the REACH Project, an EU initiative to build resilient cultural heritage and Communities in Europe. The REACH project encourages people to engage in culture and cultural heritage to foster creativity and innovation and empower citizens to face the immense and rapid changes taking place in Europe and beyond. 

Lovie Award

We won the Lovie Award in the Silver Winner and the People's Lovie Winner categories. The Lovie Awards are the European version of the Webbie Awards, recognizing the unique and resonant nature of the European Internet community – from Europe’s top web and creative networks and content publishers to cultural and political organizations and individual creators.


You can see our Lovie entry here. 

Other Events

The Ancient History Encyclopedia team took part in other events around the globe, sharing our vision and our enthusiasm for digital cultural heritage:

New Search Engine

We created a new search engine to power our site search, which adds the ability for users to filter and refine their search based on:

Employees

We increased our core team of employees from 2 full-time and 1 part-time to 3 full-time and 2 part-time. In addition, many more volunteers joined our cause and shared their articles, photos, videos and knowledge. Thank you! 

Help Us Grow

You can support our non-profit organization by becoming a member, giving a donation or by volunteering with us.