Sunday, March 25, 2007

Countries of Origin

Thanks to a tip from Zerosumgame in the comments, I looked up Gates of Vienna’s traffic statistics on Alexa. There were some real surprises there — I knew our overseas traffic was high, but the traffic from the USA is only a plurality of our numbers, not even a majority. Does that make us un-American?

Country Percentage
United States 34.9%
Canada 30.3%
United Kingdom 14.7%
Denmark 8.3%
Switzerland 5.5%
Greece 0.9%
Cambodia 0.9%
Argentina 0.9%
Australia 0.9%
Germany 0.9%
India 0.9%
Thailand 0.9%

Traffic chart

And I knew Denmark would rank fairly high — we’re Viking-oriented here, after all — but where are Sweden and Norway? Is Fjordman without honor in his own country?

And why Canada? We don’t even write about Canada very much. What is it with all you hosers, eh?

And Switzerland! I only remember one post that we’ve done on Switzerland in the whole time since we started this blog.

I scraped the stats off Alexa and brought them into Excel to play with. When you add the population of each country (from 2004 statistics) to the table, and calculate the relative proportions of the traffic, it really gets interesting. Using the number of US visitors as a baseline and weighting for each country’s population, here are the results.

Country Percentage Population Weight
Denmark 8.30% 5,432,335 1294.7%
Canada 30.30% 32,805,041 782.7%
Switzerland 5.50% 7,489,370 622.3%
United Kingdom 14.70% 60,441,457 206.1%
United States 34.90% 295,734,134 100.0%
Greece 0.90% 10,668,354 71.5%
Cambodia 0.90% 13,607,069 56.0%
Australia 0.90% 20,090,437 38.0%
Argentina 0.90% 39,537,943 19.3%
Thailand 0.90% 65,444,371 11.7%
Germany 0.90% 82,431,390 9.3%
India 0.90% 1,028,610,388 0.7%

Weighted traffic chart

I guess those Danes don’t have anything better to do than hang around here — it must be those long winter nights. Same goes for the Canadians, for that matter.

Anybody using a dialup connection will end up with an IP address based on their provider. Can something like that be at work here, skewing the statistics? I know we have quite a few Swedish visitors — are they using Danish ISPs when they log on?

Anyone who has some ideas about these statistical anomalies is welcome to hold forth in the comments.

[Nothing follows]

14 comments:

Gary Rosen said...

Cambodia? But I'm glad to see it, I hear that Islam has been trying to make inroads there (maybe that's the explanation).

Unknown said...

Several Swedish ISPs use .com domains, which might make us show up as American, though.

al fin said...

Since the issue of muslim immigration to Scandinavia made the blogs, I have gained an incredible amount of respect for the Danes.

I understand that the Swedes and Norwegians stand to suffer incredibly in the future for their meekness and unwillingness to take a stand--or even to recognise that taking a stand is needed. That may cause outsiders to pity them, but not respect them.

The Danes have earned respect.

Fellow Peacekeeper said...

At a guess tis mostly an artefact reflecting the relative distribution of the alexa toolbar in ISPs in certain countires.

Yorkshireminer said...

Am I the only one that visits here from the Netherlands ?

bruddah said...

Don't forget New Zealand and our crucial role in the geopolitics of terrorism and the defense of Western civilization! ;)

(Our national defense strategy: to hope nobody notices us)

herself said...

I hope you are not including the Republic of Ireland in the category "United Kingdom." But then it would mean that I may be the only one from Eire reading Gates, and I sort of doubt it.

Unknown said...

"And why Canada? We don’t even write about Canada very much."

We now expect more hockey coverage.

Baron Bodissey said...

herself --

Unfortunately, since I am taking these statistics from Alexa, "UK" means whatever it is Alexa wants it to mean.

But I doubt they mean to include the Irish Republic. I know that we have at least one other reader there: Dymphna's cousin, Mark Humphrys.

Zerosumgame said...

And with the UK up to 14.7%, I see that Archonix is refreshing his links to this site more than ever.

I'm so impressed that you hang on my every word like that.....

;-)

Zerosumgame said...

In all seriousness, can any Scandinavians tell us if there are internet hosts that block this site?

Given the politically correct repression (I do not think that is too strong a word) in Sweden, it would not surprise me if this website, along with other anti-dhimmi websites like LGF and Jihad Watch, would be blocked.

X said...

The wife is back in sweden right now, and there don't seem to be any. That's the good thing about people who assume you're going along with their ideas; they don't block the alternative voices, because they don't believe you'll ever listen to them.

kepiblanc said...

I don't think any Scandinavian ISP has been ordered to block anything - yet. But there's something interesting going on here : a new law allowing the PET (Politiets Efterretnings Tjeneste [Police Intelligence Service]) to monitor people's internet habits, open their e-mail and listen in on our IP-telephony. Furthermore, the police is authorized to install 'spy-bots', 'keyboard sniffers' and whatnot on people's computers - something hitherto illegal, but very straightforward to do since most people use Microsoft Windows.

The raison d'etre of this allegedly is to counter terror, but - of course - even the Muslims know that and can take precautions. And it seems that countless Danes consider this law for what it really is : a smoke screen, a cover-up for something far worse.

Danes don't trust authorities - and with good reason - so what do we do ? - Well, during the last two weeks more than 80,000 people downloaded and burned a special Linux-CD. When booting a PC from this 'live' CD it enables us to surf the web, write our e-mail and contact other people over IP-telephony in total anonymity and with everything encrypted. (The 'TOR' system). Nothing ever touches one's harddisk or leaves any trail. A typical illustration of the saying when guns are outlawed, only outlaws have guns. And people react accordingly.

This extremely useful CD can be downloaded HERE - Ready for use on any computer - and yes, it's in English too. When finished using the CD and security doesn't matter any more, one simply removes the CD and boots into 'Windows' normally.

Is it paranoia ? - Maybe, but what if the 'Social Democrats' win the next elections and thus controls the police ?

Maybe our Swedish and Norwegian cousins should pay attention...

War News Updates Editor said...

Being a Canadian, it is always fun to read what others are saying about us. But in all seriousness.....as to why Canada, it is probably because we run a Canadian based news aggregator with heavy traffic ( http://www.bookyards.com/blogs.html#top ), and we are always referring to stories on your site.....at least that is what I like to think we are doing.