Smiling man look at a camera
Annual Stats

Annual Stats for 2025

Thanks to the bot onslaught which started late last October, Cortes Currents website’s viewership doubled – going from 43,049 people in 2024 to 90,499 bots and people in 2025. This was despite the fact I was away for three months (May-July) and working less hours than normal for the duration of the year.

Visitors came from 4,034 ‘cities’ and the top 10, in terms of numbers, were:

  1. 32,650 bots came from Lanzhou, China, and stayed for a fraction of a second
  2. There may have been some humans among the 17,591 visitors from Shanghai, which is why they stayed an average of 6 seconds
  3. Up until 2025, hundreds of our most dedicated viewers came from an ‘undesignated‘ location and their visits averaged 4 minutes or more. They are undoubtedly still humans coming, but this route has largely been taken over by bots.  10,219 bots and humans stayed an average of 47 seconds.
  4. 5,293 humans came from Vancouver and stayed 2 min 18 sec.
  5. 3,235 humans came from ‘Campbell River.’ which includes Cortes Island, Quarda Island and other parts of Greater Campbell River: average visit lasted 4 min 45 sec  
  6. There may be some bots among the 1,451 vistors from Toronto who stayed 37 secs 
  7. 1,029 people came from Victoria, 1:55.
  8. 945 people from Nanaimo: 3:34
  9. 757 people from Powell River 1:58

Every article on the website was viewed; The top 10 articles were:

  1. 508 people viewed Canada’s National Debt (2019) a podcast page – 583 times – 37 sec (34,720 views of this post since it was published, undoubtedly because of the title. It was a 2019 election topic and consisted of candidate’s opinions.) 
  2. 302 people viewed Michael Keith and Iris Gildea leaving Cortes Island (2025) 370 times – 2:01
  3. 297 people viewsBC Ferries shutdown of Cortes ferry reduced to 3 weeks, hydro electric ferry coming sooner (2025) – 420 times – 4:13
  4. 282 people viewed Mascon by Teuls cuts off some Cortes Customers (2025) – 377 times – 3:27 
  5. 273 people viewed Rural Directors against Municipalities taking over the electoral areas planning service (2025) – 377 times – 2:16 
  6. 268 people viewed Elected and former politicians calling for Aaron Gunn to step down (2025) 333 times – 1:28
  7. 245 people viewed Jennifer Lash: the Liberal candidate for Noerth Island-Powell River (2025) – 279 times – 2:37
  8. 242 people viewed Ann Mortife: Coming home of Cortes Island (2023) 285 times – 4:37  (926 views of this post since it was published) 
  9. 241 people viewed SRD Municipalities wanting control of the electoral areas planning service (2025)368 times – 4:13
  10. 239 people viewed Aaron Gunn, residential schools and the meaning of genocide (2025) 301 times – 1:40

[This was the first year Germany’s Bears, Wolves and Eagles (2016) was not in the top 10, it was #17 – 227 people viewed it 249 times 1:03]

The top 5 articles for engagement: 

  1. 13 people viewed QXMC Squirrel Cove Project on track for late 2024 opening (2024) 170 times (total views since publication to 753) – 14:58
  2. 4 people viewed The Cortes Foodbank at a critical crossroad (2024) 6 times – 8:24 (total since publication to 199)
  3. 2 people viewed Once a major source of employment (2024) twice – 7:18 (total since publication 84)
  4. 2 people viewed (a repost) How will cruises impact Prince Rupert’s future? (2024) twice – 7:06  (total since publication – 36) 
  5. 2 people viewed Heat wave killed far more marine animals that originally thought, says scientist (2021) 7 times – 6:18 (Total count unknown. My Google Analytics does not go back this far and I only recorded tallies for my top posts prior to 

As the website views through different ‘page paths’ (34,223 ‘page paths’  for 4,768 posts), it is difficult to estimate how many posts were only viewed by bots, but 692 page paths have a single visitor for ‘0’ secs – which is a typical bot visit. The whole website has been cataloged at least once.

SoundCloud

Unlike Cortes Currents, which was relatively clean up until this year, there has been a bot problem on SoundCloud for as long as I have statistics. I suspect that my absence is responsible for the drop to 11,629 plays in 2025

The top 10 locations for Canadian plays were:

  1. Cortes Island – 619 (which breaks down: Mansons Landing 477; Whaletown 127; Squirrel Cove 13; Cortes Island 2)  
  2. The city of Campbell River – 599
  3. The city of Vancouver – 599
  4. Courtenay – 180
  5. Victoria – 147
  6. Denman Island – 140
  7. Quadra Isand – 95 (which breaks down Quathiaski Cove 55; Heriot Bay 40) 
  8. Parksville – 95
  9. Hornby Island – 82 
  10. Surrey – 70

Note: Cortes Island, Quadra Island and Campbell River are all designated as Campbell River on the website, so the Greater Campbell River has 12,013 plays

Top 10 podcasts, in terms of plays:

  1. Cortes Currents: The (almost) Secret Budget for REC-reate Strathcona Gardens – (2025) – 206 plays 
  2. Cortes Currents: Correcting misinformation about the SRD Housing Service (2024) – 182 plays (out of the 488 plays on this podcast)
  3. Cortes Currents” Unedited Sep 8, 2025 Cortes Bylaw Meeting (2025) – 128 plays
  4. Folk U: Howie Roman: FInding Home Cortes Currents (2025) 81 plays
  5.  Currents: Gumboots in the Straits comes to Gorge Hall (2025) – 71 plays
  6. Folk U: Concussions, Brain Health and Nervous System Regulation (2025) – 62 plays
  7. Cortes Currents: Green Party Candidate Jessica Wegg talks about the coming election (2025) – 55  
  8. Folk U: De Clark A Deep Dive into Neoliberalism (2025) 49
  9. Cortes Currents: Campbell Art Gallery may be muzzled, but community speaks out (2023) 46 plays (of the 216 plays of this podcast) 
  10. Cortes Currents: Paul Watson: Activist, Pirate, Friend (2025) 45 

Apple Podcasts

There were only 219 plays on Apple podcasts. More than half of those occurred prior to our departure in early May.