2025 – A Perplexing Finish To The Blogging Year

The last blog post of the year is always a good time to look back at the stats to see what was hot (or what was not). Let’s just say that it was a strange year.

First off, this blog hit its 10-year publication milestone this past July. I continue to amaze myself that I have not run out of things to say by now. Unless I already have and all of you are just being polite. I will, however, believe otherwise until one of you just comes out and says it.

This is where I would normally start my lists of top posts for the year, but something has been affecting my stats and I am not sure what to make of it. From an auspicious beginning in 2015 that saw 1,182 page views for the year, growth in traffic has been steady. Until last year, which saw a jump in page views from 28,893 in 2023 to a near doubling in 2024 to 48,523. Most of those views were from the U.S., Canada, the UK and western Europe, and more from other English-speaking countries around the globe. The 158 page views from China was not nearly as interesting to me as the one I got from Vatican City.

And what about this year? I expected a bump in page views from my 26-week addition of a second weekly post devoted to (mostly) classic car photos representing letters from A to Z. But would you believe that page views in 2025 (with over a week to go) are currently 443,190? That is nearly a 10x jump. And around 386,000 of those are from China. After monthly page views between 4 and 5,000, they jumped to around 27,000 in September and October, and the last two months have come in at north of 175,000 views each. The number of visitors shows a similar pattern, with big jumps starting in August and huge numbers that have been a six-fold increase from typical monthly figures before August. Almost all of this growth is (again) from China.

As you might guess, I am trying to figure out what to make of this. My first (and most cynical) explanation is that this blog has been getting Hoovered by Chinese AI projects. This would be a little annoying, but then maybe it is a good thing that Chinese AI might think just a little bit more like I do than it otherwise might. Maybe I need to write an anti Peoples Republic of China screed and see what happens.

There might be something else afoot, although WordPress’s chatbot says that so long as I am not willy-nilly allowing new commenters I should be OK. Of course, WP’s chatbot is powered by AI, so maybe they are all in league with each other. My comment policy requires my manual approval of comments from first-time commenters, and I always check to see if a new commenter I do not know appears linked to a bona fide blog before I approve. If any of you readers have any better ideas, I am all ears. (To any Chinese readers, this is just an old expression. I am not literally made of ears.)

Of course, maybe I am simply big in China. Though this is hard to imagine because I know nobody there and speak not a whit of the language. Other than occasionally eating Chinese food (OK, and buying lots of stuff made there from places like Amazon) I have no connection to the place.

With that out of the way, let us move on to my (now anticlimactic) top 5 most viewed posts of 2025. They are:

5. It’s Hot – And I Hate It (June 6, 2025, 1,875 views) about the author’s disdain for summer’s heat.

4. When The World I Recognize Briefly Reappears (March 21, 2025, 1,914 views) about a lifetime warranty that actually helped me.

3. PB&J, Wherein The Author Indulges in a Simple Pleasure (May 23, 2025, 1,922 views), telling you all you wanted to know about the origins of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

2. How Now Black Cow (August 1, 2025, 2,199 views), in which I extolled the merits of the root beer float.

And (ta-da) the most popular post of the year (by far, with 14,892 views) was Pop Music and Memories (January 26, 2025), which was my reactions on listening to an online oldies radio station. I should note that 1,045 of those views occurred in November and 13k were in December, so I suspect that the Chinese thing is a big factor here.

If we go by the top 5 posts of all time, they look like this:

5. Girl Power In Classic Jazz (October 1, 2021, 3,977 views), a sampling of vintage jazz records where the women tell their guys where they stand.

4. French Burnt Peanuts And Other Disappointments of Life (August 7, 2015, 4,701 views), a perennial top performer about the best candy in the whole, wide world.

3. Let’s Have A Block Party (April 7, 2023, 5,164 views) in which I examined a long obsolete building material.

2. Shakin’ It Up – With Pudding? (July 23, 2021, 5,399 views) about a stupid but briefly successful snack food.

And in first place (again) is Pop Music and Memories (January 26, 2025, 14,892 views).

For this blog, 2025 is now in the books and it is time to start thinking about new topics for 2026. And maybe one of those buttons that allows people to donate. But written in Chinese.

Best wishes to all of my readers for a great new year!

25 thoughts on “2025 – A Perplexing Finish To The Blogging Year”

  1. I think you’re 2025’s Tom Waits. He may be Big in Japan, but you’re Big in China. 🙂

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM60iVDu79Y

    Beyond that, it’s all about the robots; and virtually all of the statistics that come out of that leave me speechless and generally in disbelief.

    Meanwhile, Happy 2026…and Happy Year of the Snake! (which actually is almost over…as we look down the barrel at the Year of the Horse on 2/17/2026.)

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Maybe your explanation is the correct one. I suppose I should start making preparations for my tour? Ooh, I think I will prefer the year of the horse to the year of the snake. So one more reason to look forward to the Chinese new year.

      Actually, this reminds me of a favorite story – my young family was sitting down in a Chinese restaurant, the old kind where the paper place mats depicted the symbols of the Chinese zodiac. One of my kids, probably 6 years old, looked at it in horror and blurted out “Oh Yuck! Don’t they have anything else?” I wonder if this story is as funny in China. 🙂

      Like

      Reply

      • I was going to note in reference to the current Year of the Snake and the upcoming Year of the Horse that at least in my experience, horses are bothered by few things more than snakes. Well, ok, maybe pigs too. Pigs and snakes. But we have to wait until 2031 for the next Year of the Pig, so suffice to say that Horses don’t often meet Pigs in the Chinese Zodiac. The point being, that Horses and Snakes are diametrically opposed…so maybe the upcoming year will be quite different from the current. We shall see.

        Your Chinese restaurant story is terrific! And hilarious 🙂

        Coming from a family background with many Chinese people in it (including my father who never shied away from telling an “instructive” story to his children), I can tell you that if the story had been told in China, it would need to be a parable and ultimately it would end with you chastising your child for their disdain for eating monkey.

        Liked by 1 person

      • The son who was repulsed by the menu of his imagination was over yesterday and I shared this comment with him. We both got a good laugh out of it. He is an adventurous eater today, but I don’t think monkey is on the menu even now.

        Like

  3. Well those are certainly interesting stats, JP. I’ve heard other bloggers complaining about unexplained surges in stats, and being reassured by WP Happiness Engineers (or I guess they are chatbox engineers now) that it is nothing to worry about. I have not experienced anything myself, but when I just checked my stats I see An Interview with Jane Austen has finally been dethroned by Charles Dickens and Food, Glorious Food. Poor Jane, and it’s her 250th birthday year too.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  4. Some things are simply hard to predict or explain. Like being 73 degrees F on Christmas Day. Or 60 the day after.

    But it appears China likes you. I hear they like things from the West and you have covered a wide variety of such things in the last decade. That’s my take on it.

    Despite the China influence, your blog is doing quite well. For that, a hearty congratulations is in order!

    Happy New Year!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Thanks, and to you as well. These warm temps over Christmas were a problem for us. We have always used a car in the garage (which is right off the kitchen) as a spare refrigerator when having family over for the holidays. With outdoor temps of around 60 yesterday, we were down one fridge.

      Like

      Reply

  6. That’s interesting about the stats – perhaps readers in China like reading about American goodies. They are drooling over the PB&J sandwiches (who wouldn’t after all) and all the other treats you write about. I just checked my stats and found a rather-nothing post from 2018 about a walk at Council Point Park mentioning a few black squirrels was my most-viewed post and most of my viewers, other than the U.S., are in Vietnam. I would have though Canada? Back at you JP – all the best for 2026!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • That is interesting that you are getting viewers from Viet Nam. My top countries for viewers (after China and the U.S.) are the UK (2597), Canada (2580), Germany (776) and Austrailia (641). Someone in my family raised the question yesterday of whether some readers have VPNs (virtual private networks) that route traffic through other countries. I don’t think I know how to say whether this is happening or not.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      • I never thought about a VPN being the reason – hmm. I have a VPN and yes, you can route internet traffic through other countries. I tried switching it to France when I was studying French, thinking I could eventually learn words/phrases by listening to their radio stations, but switching to France was not compatible with some of the sites I access here. I have my VPN set to Chicago.

        Liked by 1 person

  7. Wow, those are interesting stats! I am lucky if I get 100 views a day, yet in the past few weeks I have been getting 500 views one day, then down to 20 views the next day then 600 views the next. All that without putting up a new post. I don’t trust the numbers at all anymore!

    All the best to you in 2026!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • It wasn’t too long ago that I was getting 100 views a day and thought I had hit the big time! Yes, is weird how we can occasionally see that view spike. I would see those too (although my Chinese numbers are making them invisible now).
      And I hope 2026 is a great year for you and your family!

      Like

      Reply

      • I looked at a query on the WordPress forum – the discussion was all about the same view count from China issue. The moderators said they are aware of it and that it is Bot activity. They understand how it messes up your stats – makes them rather useless, actually, if stats are a measure a blogger uses for some purpose. WordPress does try to fix the stats when they identify the Bots.

        Liked by 1 person

  9. I don’t spend much time with WP statistics but it’s interesting to see the disparity between views, followers, and comments. If I were to guess, I’d propose a 100:10:1 ratio but like yours, mine is way off kilter from that ratio. Something is pumping up the views to astronomical numbers (especially considering I don’t promote my blog through social media or otherwise). No matter; just glad to hear there will be more topics from J P. in 2026. Never run out of things to say!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  10. Those stats are absolutely bots from China, and they can come from other SE Asian countries too. I guess you weren’t aware of the serious issue we had with this at CC. We finally installed a new plug-in that allows us to block all traffic from certain countries. If we had one or two actual readers in China, that’s unfortunate but necessary.

    This issue is rampant across the web. The odd thing is that I’ve yet to get a really logical explanation for just what and why they are doing this. It’s not malicious to the extent we can tell, but it does create odd distortions and might eat up bandwidth.

    In your case you might not need to do anything, but if it gets worse or you do want to block China or other countries, let me know. I think that plug in might be free for small blogs.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Thanks for the info. The bot thing makes sense, but as with you, the why is a mystery. Things seem to have returned to normal in the last couple of weeks, so maybe they have lost interest. I appreciate the offer on the plug in, I may take you up on it if the bots come back.

      Like

      Reply

  11. I debated for awhile whether to write a long comment or just write my own post on the confusing WordPress stats. I blogged daily for over five years and when I discovered a stat page existed, I noticed I was getting as few as four views a day, although I was hearing more complaints about my posts than that from the non WordPress friends, family, and former co-workers who emailed me or cornered me at social gatherings! Eventually a few Bloggers, bots, and serial likers found me and I took a stab at consciously trying to increase traffic. Suddenly I had 550 followers and over 200 views per day. My curiosity was a mistake because the time drain overwhelmed me! When someone “likes” seven separate posts all time stamped the same minute, the numbers seem meaningless. The best way to go viral is to get famous first and then start a Blog!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment