What we’ve learned after nine years of doing Dispatches Europe is that it’s always about the data. Since the early days of the Internet, when publishers realized we could track user data, that data has been gold:
Who
Where
How many
How often
What the data doesn’t tell you is “Why.” You have to guess at that, which makes selecting content so hit or miss. A post you think will spin the dial doesn’t, and the one you thought would just do okay goes viral.
The digital media world is a lot more complicated than when we started Dispatches Europe in 2016 as Google not only has owned search for nearly two decades but also changes its core algorithm updates every few months. Part of it is ostensibly to offer better quality content rather than content mill, click-bait crap. But mostly this is about Google maintaining its de facto monopoly on search revenue.
In 2024, courts ruled that Google both holds an illegal monopoly in online search AND related advertising markets, violating antitrust laws by using unfair tactics to maintain its 90 percent-plus market share. Google does this primarily through exclusive deals that make it the default search engine on wireless devices, including phones. Google also controls the technology which determines the ads you see and where you see them online.
The days of website banner ads are long over, so advertising dollars have dried up for publishers, going instead to social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram, both owned by Meta. What’s left is essentially remnant advertising even for sites such as Dispatches that have substantial traffic.
Here comes AI
AND all that’s changing as readers are shifting to agentic AI for searches. It’s cliché, but the only constant in the digital media world is change. Now, with artificial intelligence’s insatiable demand for data, suddenly publishers – think of us as information delivery services – with primary-source, human-written content have increasing leverage. We’ll see how that goes in 2026 … and maybe we’ll start generating more revenue and depending less on subsidiary business to support Dispatches.
For the moment, data is a double-edged sword. It can tell you what your audience wants. It can also tell you how wrong you are and how much you don’t know. Where I was wrong for 2025 was I thought we’d see a jump in fleeing Americans reading our DIY expat instructional posts and we did but just not to the extent I thought we would. In fact, the percentage of traffic from the United States actually dropped, with the United Kingdom becoming our largest audience in the aggregate. A post on famous Americans relocating to Europe was the 42nd best read post. A post about our friend Pip Pullen moving to Paris came in at No. 53. No. 23 on the list is American expat Jess Bretin’s post on what expats need to know about Sweden’s changing immigration rules.
In tech, several of our Eindhoven Business Briefings show up in the Top 50 best-read posts as does content about Croatia’s booming tech scene. Travel is the one content category that doesn’t seem to spin the dial yet defines the expat lifestyle in Europe. My personal take is, we’re up against CNN, BBC and Euronews, and we’re just not at that level … yet.
The good news is, Dispatches’ traffic is shifting slowly from organic Google search to more of our audience coming directly to the website. People increasingly are coming from searching AI platforms such as OpenAI and ChatGPT as are the bots.
Quantifying how much traffic and identifying the source is increasingly difficult because more people are coming from search engines such as DuckDuckGo that protect users from being tracked and helps users avoid content mills. And of course, we’re being scraped by AI bots/agents, which may or may not show up in our analytics.
Bottom line: We are in the chaos business.
So, without further ado, here are our Top 10 most-read posts for 2025:
No. 1 Costco – Staff. Our compendium of all the Costcos across Europe. Terry – All I can say is, our readers love a bargain. This post is nine years old and has stayed at No. 1, racking up millions of page views, showing up at the top, or near the top, of Google searches.
No. 2 1 euro homes – Terry. The original post went live in 2021, and like Costco, has been updated, racking up millions of views with a corresponding Google ranking.
No. 3 Just another Sunday night at the KitKat Club – Chris Loar. All we can say is, Berlin and sin are big traffic drivers.
No. 4 From Turner to Hockney – Terry and Nina Danilova. There’s no place like Europe for art lovers.
No. 5 Favorite kindercafés in Vienna – Thom Harding. New dad Thom has a major fan club of young parents in Vienna.
No. 6 Amusement parks open in the winter –Terry. Because in Europe, winter is a peak season for fun.
No. 7 Berghain, Pt. 2 – We’re all living vicariously through Chris.
No. 8 Humana – Chris takes us to a multi-story thrift store at a time when thrifting and vintage clothes are hot.
No. 9 Europe’s outlet centers -Terry. Another post that’s been updated through the years but never lost momentum.
No. 10 – New ferry from Istanbul to Burgas– Kalina Verbanova. This one we can’t explain, though we can’t think of a cooler adventure than going by ship from Turkey to Bulgaria.
Dispatches is its own niche … dedicated to the 30-plus million expats out there exploring the globe. We aim for a mix of long-tail posts that never die along with newsy posts with a limited half-life. That’s a long way from what conventional news sites or entertainment platforms do. But we think with increasing audience segmentation, we have a winning formula.
Co-CEO of Dispatches Europe. A former military reporter, I'm a serial expat who has lived in France, Turkey, Germany and the Netherlands.
