Country stats / visitor languages

[wolf]

I have only just signed up and have joined the queue, waiting for your server upgrade. So, I haven't actually seen StatCounter in action, but I gather that you are working on doing something new with visitor country stats.

May I make a suggestion: A different service that I used in the past provided me with visitor languages, i.e. the language setting on a visitor's machine. I found that this is the best way to get a relatively accurate view of where visitors come from. It is also very useful information in its own right. Just an idea ...

Wolf

http://www.wolfkettler.co.uk/
http://www.visualxpo.plus.com/

We can gather that information. But do people really find it useful? Just because you can collect certain info, doesn't mean that you should.

What action did you take based on those language stats?

[joyousigs]

In terms of collecting the language that the visitor have their browser set to, I would find this to be very helpful. My wife's website has been up for a bit over a month. I’m finding a reasonable amount of traffic coming from Europe. I have placed Babel Fish on the front page as a translator (8 languages) and currently I’m hoping that this will be sufficient but I have no way to be sure, so the tracking would be very helpful.

Until StatCounter is up, and accepting new sites, I have found extreme tracking as a temporary stand in – which leads me to needing to thank you all - in that for some reason referrals from StatCounter contributed about 20% of visitors so far (visitors can examine the site statistics – the square icon down at the bottom of the index page – Oh yes – this is not intended to be a commercial for them). Who would have thought for a tiny insignificant site for Italian Greyhound dogs..... Thanks!

[joyousigs]

... also on country statistics, it might be effective to lay a histogram of visitor counts based on the visitor's time zone (utc-12 to UTC to UTC+12, or every 15 degrees at the equator) laid across the bottom of a mercator projection map with vertical areas based on timezone.

It does not directly address each individual country, but in one quick glance it give you a pretty good idea of about where the traffic is coming from.