Just a few days ago we hit our very first Patreon goal, which was certainly cause for celebration! Not only have we established that there’s some demand for the content we’re putting out, but we’ll also be able to fulfill our primary goal in moving Sakugabooru (and this blog alongside it) to its own independent server. Why is that such a big deal, though? Let’s find out.

As we’ve stated before, Sakugabooru currently runs on the server of an acquaintance who was kind enough to give us the space for it. Not much of an issue initially, considering it was just a small thing thrown together after some half-hearted discussions on IRC. Surely it wouldn’t transform into something much bigger than anyone involved in those discussions could imagine later down the line, right?

Well.

Above are some statistics regarding the traffic Sakugabooru has received since its conception. You can see almost immediately that traffic has been – and still is – continually increasing as time goes on, to the point where we can’t exactly call this a small project anymore. There’s a worldwide audience keen on surfing through the archives at their own leisure, backed up by the fact that we have a mere 35% bounce rate. For those who don’t know what that means, it’s a figure determining the number of people who leave the site after viewing a single page; that means about 65% of the booru’s visitors are hooked enough to go check out other uploads once they’re done with their original business. Not too shabby!

The most interesting statistic though is that Japan serves as the booru’s second largest audience, and they’re only trailing behind by a very small margin at that! There’s been a lot of curiosity regarding their usage of the booru, so here’s resounding evidence that it’s not just something that we western fans can take advantage of. Even more interesting is that we know for a fact that a lot of people within the industry also make use of it, some of which even have accounts and help tag people they worked with in uploads! Not just on the JP side, either; professional western animators have been seen commenting on the site itself, tagging work they were involved with like their Japanese comrades and talking about it on Twitter, and even one of our regular users found himself overjoyed when his work made it onto the booru not too long ago. Sakugabooru’s rather massive archive has turned it into a tool that many people can make use of; from fans who just want to see some cool animation, to those within the industry – or aiming to be – who see it as a tool for studying. And it serves as a great portfolio for people keen to show off their work, too!

All of that said and done, moving Sakugabooru to an independent server is important in and of itself because, well, it makes us independent. Piggybacking off another person’s server and bandwidth is never ideal for something that still clearly has potential to expand its userbase even further, so we want to ensure that unforeseen circumstances can’t knock what has become a valuable resource for multiple parties offline with no warning. Not only that, but this should also help us eliminate issues with it running slow for some users; you can’t go wrong in ensuring that everyone has a streamlined experience, after all. Our super admin aers is currently in the process of sorting everything out for the eventual move – scheduled for sometime this month – and taking care that it all goes as smoothly as possible, but it’s important to note that your continued support once it’s all said and done still matters! We may have reached our initial goal, but now the priority lies in making the experience even better and ensuring we can keep it going as long as possible. Not just through the Patreon, either! Sakugabooru’s come as far as it has thanks to everyone who’s taken the time to contribute to it, so if there’s something you feel is worth uploading, don’t be shy!

Support us on Patreon so that we can keep producing all this content and fullfill our next goals, as well as affording all server expenses. Thanks!