Google Analytics: 14 Months
Google Analytics was set up for this blog 14 months ago (refer to the posts I submitted over the past year to see how traffic has grown over this time period). Since the last related post 2 months ago, the number of countries of origin has increased by 10 to reach 81. Visitors from the top 10 countries of origin came from the United States (53.8%), Canada (4.0%), the United Kingdom (3.9%), India (3.1%), Germany (3.0%), France (2.6%), the Netherlands (2.4%), Australia (2.1%), Spain (2.0%), and Brazil (1.8%).
In my last Google Analytics post, I wrote the following:
You might notice that the…map overlay does not show data points across 71 countries. This is due to the fact that data points do not display until a certain number of visits are reached. This might reduce clutter, but I would much prefer that all data points be plotted.
In investigating Google Analytics since that last post, it appears that only the "Country/Territory", "Sub Continent Region", and "Continent" map overlays display all data points; in most cases, anyway, because there is no consistency (while all data points are displayed in the United States, not all data points are displayed in South America). Provided further down in the post below are map overlays of number of vists at the "Continent" level: "Americas", "Europe", "Asia", "Oceania", and "Africa".
These images are far superior in my opinion to those at the global level, but it is apparent that because of the high concentration of visits from the United States and Europe, as well as the size of each of the data points that Google Analytics provides, that the "Sub Continent Region" map overlay needs to be viewed if additional detail is desired. At this point I am not planning to divulge this level of detail (as a general rule; some examples are provided below to illustrate some points I am trying to make).
It is interesting that Google Analytics calls the "Americas" a continent, and that this continent breaks down into "Northern America", "Central America", and "South America". Whatever happened to North America? And while it is clear that even cities from which single visits originated display in Northern America (although all data points are not visible in the above map overlay due to reasons sited above), this is not the case for South America in the above map overlay. For example, there were visits from 28 cities in South America, and some cities such as Sao Paulo provided a relatively higher number of visitors than other cities, which the Continent overlay does not show.
The Google Analytics definition of the continent of "Europe" is even more surprising than its definition of the content of the "Americas". A break between Europe and Asia is traditionally made in far western Russia, often around the Ural Mountains. Is the Kamchatka Peninsula really in Europe? The Sub Continent Regions of "Northern Europe", "Western Europe", and "Southern Europe" (Russia is considered part of "Eastern Europe") are especially congested in the map overlay above, not because there have been more visits from these areas than the United States, but because of the limited area (Germany, for example, has fewer square miles than the state of Montana), and fewer rural areas when compared to the United States.
Outside the continents of the "Americas" and "Europe", visitors have been relatively minimal. While visits from "Oceania" and "Africa" have been scarce, however, visits from "Asia" are growing, so I have chosen to provide the map overlay of the latter continent but not the former.
To date, the top ten pages most visited on this blog are as follows: (1) Anima Sana in Corpore Sano, (2) LiquiBase in the Enterprise – Part 2, (3) LiquiBase in the Enterprise – Part 1, (4) New Book Review: "Manage Your Project Portfolio", (5) Switching from ASICS to Brooks, (6) Copycat Advertising Campaign, (7) Global Leadership Summit 2010 – Day 1: Dr. Peter Zhao Xiao, (8) New Book Review: "Amplifying Your Effectiveness", (9) SpringOne 2GX 2010 – Day 2 Keynote, and (10) Global Leadership Summit 2010 – Day 1: Andy Stanley.
As mentioned in my Google Analytics post for 12 months, I find it humorous that my entries on running are among the most popular. While pages (1) and (5) were among the top ten pages most visited at 12 months, very recently submitted page (6) has quickly shot to the top ten as well. The conference notes I share here from the second keynote at SpringOne 2GX 2010 are also relative newcomers to this list. And while my conference notes from Global Leadership Summit 2010 are starting to become a memory, my (in-progress) series on database change management using LiquiBase continues to be heavily visited.