Author Topic: Free visitor map  (Read 3254 times)

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Offline ocala

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Free visitor map
« on: June 12, 2007, 05:44:45 PM »
Found this on Wunderground. I pasted it into mine. We'll see how it does.
http://www.maploco.com/view.php?id=777867
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Offline up10ad N9RJH

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Re: Free visitor map
« Reply #1 on: June 13, 2007, 10:12:30 AM »
Interesting.  I find that all location maps for visitors suffer from the same drawback, they can't accurately indicate the visitor's location.  :cry:  They count visitors fine, but the location is determinded by the ip address, and they are notoriously incorrect.

The innacuracy is due to the method used for geo-tracking, ususlly reverse DNS lookup.  The drawback to this is that a significant number of IP address do not have a reverse DNS set up, somewhere in the 30%-50% range.  Even if they do, the resolved location may or may not be accurate for the specific visitor.  

For example, all AOL users in the US are shown to be from Virginia because that is where AOL is located.  Up until recently even AOL users in the UK were shown to be from VA.  :shock:  Likewise, most of my own ISP user traffic (from nctelecom.net) are shown to be from Craig, CO when actually they could be anywhere on Colorado's western slope.  

The above problems with geo-IP tracking may not be significant enough to detract from mapping on a PWS site, but the innacuracties should at least be recognized so the reported data can be understood correctly.

Some geo-trackers are better than others, let us know how yours seems to work.
Rick (N9RJH)
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Offline Mark / Ohio

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Re: Free visitor map
« Reply #2 on: June 14, 2007, 08:26:39 PM »
Quote from: "k6dyc"
....For example, all AOL users in the US are shown to be from Virginia because that is where AOL is located.  ....


Took me a little bit before I caught on to that when I first put statistics  tracking on my webpage.  Couldn't figure out why someone in Reston VA. was so interested.   :lol:

It finally clicked when some internet friends from other forums residing across the U.S. mentioned they was on AOL.   #-o
Mark 
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