One of the ways I monitor this blog's traffic is by checking Sitemeter every day. They have lots of fun features, one of which is a world map that shows where my last 100 visitors came from. The map isn't particularly useful, but it's interesting to know that people in places like Denmark and Turkey and New Guinea and Philippines have popped over to read my blog. You can see my traffic map here. Zoom in and find yourself!
And then maybe somebody can explain why I get traffic from all over the world but never Alaska. Have I offended Alaskans in some way?
11 comments:
I check the world map frequently to see where my readers come from as well. And, like you, I am amazed at where my readers are. It's fun.
I have a friend in Alaska and will send your link to her. Hopefully, she'll check it out and then you can cross off Alaska.
Hello from DC!
That's really entertaining and extremely disquieting all at once. S'not really that I do anything on the internet that I'd mind my mother knowing about, but I never realised they could monitor traffic like that. Why wasn't I told? I mean, if that information is in the public domain, are there vast government computers somewhere recording my endless trips to Tesco and Amazon?
And if so, why would that be worrying, since patently obviously, the vast computers at Amazon and Tesco already hold that information. I'm going to lie down with a cold compress and recover.
[And then I'll come back, because I wasn't on the map, and I'm miffed, and I want to see if it works retrospectively.]
Many thanks, Fly Girl. I just don't know what's up with those elusive Alaskans.
Hello, Bobby. Thanks for popping in.
Marianne, I hope I haven't scared you off. Believe it or not, I can't see you through my computer screen. ;-)
And I'm glad you can't see me. It's a bad hair day and I've just noticed a spot of mustard on my sleeve.
By the way, Marianne, if you're using a dial-up connection like AOL, it probably won't show your actual city. The locations of AOL people are effectively masked.
Hey cool! Hello from the little red dot in Ajax, Ontario, Canada!
I'm still not there. A little disheartening that I don't exist, but at least it frees me up for a life of crime as an internet robber baron.
Perhaps that's the answer to your Alaskan query. Maybe they're all out there, but the map displaces them to West Virginia. I think it's moved me to Slough or Newcastle. No dots on Ireland at all.
Hmm. Are you absolutely certain you're in Ireland, Marianne?
;-)
That's a fun feature.
That's like those wrong numbers you get, where the disembodied voice asks to speak to Mary, and when you explain no Mary lives with you, asks suspiciously 'Are you sure?'
No answer to that.
Maybe it is Slough. Be like that Jim Carey film, where everyone pretends it's a normal town and really it's a giant reality TV set. Could be it's just all been one long practical joke... "Your expression when you realised you'd actually lived in England all these years... Priceless. I could have died laughing."
Geographically it's Ireland, but I'm in the North, so there may be a mundane explanation like I'm routed through some AOL system on the mainland.
Mapstats is better, and goes by city and country as long as you're not on wireless laptop.
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