Website visitor breakdown with google's analytics
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
I subscribe to google's analytics service, which is another website statistics analyzer with the bells and whistles that google is known for, i.e., the use of
XMLHttpRequest (or AJAX) and, this time, Macromedia's Flash to display the information in a well thought out manner. It is a neat service--if you have websites you would like to track, go to google.com/analytics to join.
The main view has something google calls "Geo Map Overlay." You guessed right, if you said that is a geographical display of where people are connecting from, to the analyzed site.
As of today (December 21, 2005, at 1:08 AM--I should go to bed), the josesandoval.com's geo map overlay looks like:
Google's analytics service figures out where in the world internet users visiting my site are from, with the aid of some DNS magic--those google guys are a clever bunch.
There is no surprise about the 2D representation of the continents around the globe, what I find interesting is where the majority of my site's visitors are from: the red band overlaid on the geo map overlay shows where most visitors are connecting from--the red band is my doing, not google's.
It seems that people visiting my site are between the 25° and 40° latitude band. There are hardly any visitors from below the Equator line, most internauts are from, what we call, first world economies.
I am always fascinated by the fact that most of the richest populations of the world are actually located around the 33° latitude--something to ponder about for the conspiracy theorist in you. But before you do, read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. Perhaps you will believe some his well researched theories.
According to analytics, most visitors stumble upon my site via search engines. Most are from google, yahoo, and msn search results. What are people looking for? This is a list of the top 20 queries:
reqs: search term
----: -----------
100: software developer resume
36: resume software developer
31: xmlhttprequest java
26: oracle auto increment
22: dao pattern
19: java inheritance
19: firefox xmlhttprequest
19: developer resume
19: jose sandoval
18: java developer resume
15: poemas de nezahualcoyolt
15: java xmlhttprequest
12: google universe
11: j2ee developer resume
11: xmlhttprequest servlet
10: software architect resume
10: xmlhttprequest example
9: html getdate
9: xmlhttprequest firefox
9: software development resume
2631: [not listed: 2,201 search terms]
The top two searches seem to be from "potential" clients/employers looking for Software Developers. This is a good sign, as the main purpose of my site is to reach this exact demographic--my online
resume is my lifeline to the outside world.
The other parts of my site that are of some interest to people are the Java tools and code samples I have online, which are the reason I get a lot of hits from India, i.e., I sometimes get requests to explain a couple of things, or direct question pertaining to certain technology--BTW, I welcome email of this sort: it gives me a chance to stay connected with other developers and cultures; though, you should note that I will not do your programming/design homework :)
I am not entirely surprised at the geography of my visitors. I mean, most of what I write and have in my site is of interest (or maybe not too interesting) to a small world population (developers), and all entries are written in English, thus limiting my visitors to the English speaking world.
Although, some of my
drawings are of some interest to people as well--I have actually been asked if I can sell one of my paintings.
I have not decided if I want to sell it or not, but I may end up doing it just so that can I can claim to be a "professional" artist, as well as a professional software developer. Gabriel, my five year old son, gets really impressed when I tell him things like that. Of course, he doesn't know what professional means, nor what a software developer does. Come to think of it, he gets really impressed when I get him a bowl of Cheerios with milk in the mornings.
Anyway, I wonder if more general sites have the same geographical distribution as my site? And of course, what does the geographical distribution of web users really mean?
I have to think about that one to see what I come up with. I am almost cetain, though, that the
digital divide, the new world's social cause, has something to do with it.
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