Skip to main content

I have put Google Analytics on my writing blog, just to figure out what kind of keywords get the most visitors and the visitor count, because that one is on Blogger, and does not have the kind of extras that WordPress does.

And I discovered that Google Analytics also tells me things like how many visits I have had from which city!

I have visitors from Melbourne and Stockholm, from Milan and Paris, and these I am excited about, but they are somehow the expected.

What I am really intrigued to know is that someone from Ellicot city or West Rutland in the U.S., or Kirkintilloch in the U.K. has visited me. I have a visitor from Novi Beograd in Serbia and Montenegro, I have visitors from Bandar Seri Begawan in Brunei, and I am thinking, wow, what completely fascinating names! I don’t even know whether most of these are towns or cities, what they look like, and so on, and yet, here are these people who have stopped by.

I have always known that the internet has a degree of omnipresence, and that complete strangers from across the world visit my blogs, but somehow seeing the names of those cities and towns, the date when the visits came and so on makes it so very real!

As you can see from the links, I have looked up a few of the places on the internet. I now have a new pastime (when I am taking a break between the gazillion things I have to do): every time I get a visitor from a place I have never heard of before, I will look it up, and take it from there.

For example, Wikipedia tells me: Anthony Burgess‘s Brunei novel Devil of a State is set in Bandar Seri Begawan. The construction of the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque is a major theme in the book. Maybe I will look up the book, next time I head to the Borders bookstore!

Damyanti Biswas

Damyanti Biswas is the author of You Beneath Your Skin and numerous short stories that have been published in magazines and anthologies in the US, the UK, and Asia. She has been shortlisted for Best Small Fictions and Bath Novel Awards and is co-editor of the Forge Literary Magazine. Her literary crime thriller series, the Blue Mumbai, is represented by Lucienne Diver from The Knight Agency. Both The Blue Bar and The Blue Monsoon were published in 2023.

I appreciate comments, and I always visit back. If you're having trouble commenting, let me know via the contact form, or tweet me up @damyantig !

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

3 Comments

  • indigobunting says:

    Fascinating. I wonder if I turned up as West Rutland, given that I think my connection comes out of there. It’s actually about a 40-minute drive. I’m from West Pawlet. Now I need to find out if THAT can be found on Wikipedia…such a tiny place.

  • damyantig says:

    Indeed it does, and I love it!

  • darcknyt says:

    It becomes such a small planet, doesn’t it, when the Internet can bring such great distances together in the same room?