Spammers Don’t Take a Break for the Holidays

Boxing Day here this year is a blowy, snowy mess. Of course, it doesn’t stop the dog from complaining that he needs to go for a walk but other than that, it’s a day to sit back by the fire and just do a lot of nothing.

To pass some time, I thought that I would take a look at the statistics from this blog. I’m always amazed, and so appreciative, to see that there are people that actually take the time to drop by. What never fails to get me is that their IP addresses point to locations all over the world. Now, the good people don’t spoof their addresses or try to mislead statistics programs. Not all visitors are necessarily here for the good and I’ve noted many times that I’m so appreciative of Akismet doing its thing to keep the nonsense from public view.

As I start to mess around with the analytics, I was drawn to the number of views by country. This was a screen capture made in the afternoon.

Wow! Four visitors from the Russian Federation. That’s a click that’s a long way from home. Too bad they didn’t leave a comment. Or, maybe they did.

Sigh. Yes, they did.

My Russian is a little rusty but, thankfully Google Translate helps out. Glad that it was flagged for me.

But there was something else. As you move over the countries in the list above, the WordPress site flips right to the country. How cool is that?

I played around a little more and found a consolidation page showing views over a larger period of time. Moving a cursor over the titles is like a trip down Geography lane. I couldn’t help but think that this could find a home in the Social Studies classroom.

Spammers – I know that you and/or your robots don’t take a break for the holidays but that’s for the inspiration for a little Geography review. Some of the countries were easily remembered but a bunch of them were either new to me or an opportunity to refresh my memory and that’s not bad at all.

Country	Views
United States	19,196
Canada	15,261
United Kingdom	3,061
Australia	2,267
India	1,400
Philippines	1,167
Germany	573
Russian Federation	479
Spain	456
France	434
Brazil	337
Netherlands	294
Indonesia	287
New Zealand	262
Azerbaijan	253
Italy	236
Mexico	219
South Africa	218
Thailand	208
Malaysia	194
Turkey	191
Singapore	185
Switzerland	181
Republic of Korea	178
Pakistan	167
Japan	154
Greece	144
Hong Kong	142
Poland	142
Ireland	139
Sweden	138
Portugal	136
Belgium	129
Argentina	118
Saudi Arabia	112
Israel	111
United Arab Emirates	110
Viet Nam	103
Romania	101
Colombia	101
Taiwan	100
Czech Republic	97
Denmark	95
Norway	90
Ukraine	90
Finland	82
Hungary	68
Serbia	65
Egypt	62
Latvia	60
Austria	56
Chile	55
Bulgaria	48
Bangladesh	47
Peru	46
Slovakia	36
Venezuela	35
Cambodia	32
Puerto Rico	32
Nigeria	32
Slovenia	28
Qatar	28
Croatia	28
Iceland	27
Morocco	27
Sri Lanka	26
Ecuador	26
Kenya	24
Bahrain	22
Estonia	22
Trinidad and Tobago	22
Kuwait	21
Jordan	21
Belarus	20
Jamaica	19
Oman	18
Tunisia	17
Malta	16
Algeria	16
Lebanon	16
Lithuania	15
Iraq	14
Macedonia, the Former Yugoslav Republic	14
Guatemala	14
Luxembourg	14
United Republic of Tanzania	13
Ghana	13
Georgia	13
Bahamas	12
Costa Rica	11
Cyprus	10
Paraguay	10
Bosnia and Herzegovina	10
Brunei Darussalam	10
Armenia	10
Albania	9
Palestinian Territory, Occupied	9
Mongolia	8
Moldova	8
Yemen	8
Nepal	8
Bermuda	7
Panama	7
Syrian Arab Republic	7
Uruguay	7
El Salvador	7
Mauritius	7
Bolivia	6
Maldives	6
Myanmar	6
Guam	6
Macao	6
Dominican Republic	6
Uganda	5
China	5
Belize	4
British Virgin Islands	4
Kazakhstan	4
Honduras	4
Montenegro	4
Saint Lucia	3
Zimbabwe	2
Ethiopia	2
Suriname	2
Martinique	2
Senegal	2
Namibia	2
Lao People’s Democratic Republic	2
Virgin Islands	2
Madagascar	2
Burkina Faso	2
Jersey	2
French Guiana	2
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	2
Barbados	1
Greenland	1
Mozambique	1
Zambia	1
Fiji	1
Cayman Islands	1
Gabon	1
Seychelles	1
Rwanda	1
Andorra	1
Timor-Leste	1
Monaco	1
Guyana	1
Sudan	1