How to read ClustrMaps for individual users

Below is a (truncated) 'typical user map', labelled with large letters corresponding to the explanations further below.

Key explanation:

[A] Map owner: All figures, numbers, and totals always refer to the map owner, and not to the home of our own master server at ClustrMaps.com (in other words, visit counts are visits to your site, not ours!). The site name is also shown immediately above the map - in this example the owner is an actual user, http://www.meetomatic.com, although the map example is a composite taken from elsewhere.

[B] Option to display 'smaller clustrs': to attain our large scaleability, all visitors to a site within a given distance (see [J]) are clustered together into a larger dot. By clicking on this 'smaller clustrs' option you can see the corresponding view when the inter-dot clustering distance is greatly reduced.

[C] Link to archive: You are looking at the current map of cumulative visits since the date depicted at [F], but if the user has been running for long enough there will be older maps available prior to that date, accessible by clicking on this archive link. If the user has not been running for long enough or not enough visitors have been logged to warrant an archive, then there will simply not be an archive map shown when you follow this link.

[D] The map itself: This is the main 'clustered dots display of all visitors' that you will have seen already, in this case the main world map. For some users (e.g. ClustrMaps+) it is also possible to zoom in further by clicking on specific continents, and then even further to certain countries (e.g. the UK).

[E] Cumulative visits at the instant this map was created, tallied since last map archive: The '41315' in this example means that between the last archive (see [C] and [F]) and the time this map was created, 41,315 visitors to the owner's site had been logged. If the user has been running for long enough there will be older maps available prior to that date, accessible by clicking on the archive link (see [C]). If the user has not been running for long enough or not enough visitors have been logged to warrant an archive, then dates [F] and [H] will be the same. Three extra points to bear in mind: (i) if the same user from the same unique IP re-visited the site, say, 20 times during this period, it will count as 20 visits; (ii) in the case of a large organization using a proxy server, 20 different visitors from that one organization would have the same effect as one person visiting 20 times; (iii) the 'running total' continues behind-the-scenes in real time, i.e. this map is 'rendered' (created and saved to disk on the main server) at a particular moment, but the totals are always updated in real time, so in this case the 'live running total' would be greater than 41315, and would be reflected in the next map update. Thus, think of 'update' as 'renderiing the map to be viewed by everyone, until the next update'.

The relationship betwen updates, archives, and cumulative totals is shown schematically in the timeline below. The 3 large red bars representing 'archive moments' and the tiny vertical 'stripes' each depect the instant that a web user has actually visited the site we are examining. The small triangles represent moments when the maps are actually updated. The 4 downward facing green arrows represent 4 instants in time when we have decided to actually inspect the ClustrMaps display and look at the totals. You should confirm for yourself that at 'Look 3', the map would say "3 visits since Archive 1, total visits 20 since Start". [More detailed examples and explanation...]

[F] Date of last archive: The '27 Jul 2005' means in this case that the most recent archive was created on the 27th of July, 2005. if the user has been running for long enough there will be older maps available prior to that date, accessible by clicking on the archive link (see [C]). If the user has not been running for long enough or not enough visitors have been logged to warrant an archive, then dates [F] and [H] will be the same. As in the notes for [E] above, visitors totals are still logged behind-the-scenes in real time.

[G] Total cumulative visits: This user began with an earlier system called HitMaps (typically during October 2004 - February 2005), and including the 41315 visits counted in [E] has experienced a total of 90,749 visits since the beginning. The earlier maps are stored in the archive described in [C].

[H] First starting date: Whereas [F] refers to the map we are currently looking at, longtime users will have started earlier, and this date is shown in here. If the user has been running for a relatively short time or the totals are relatively low, then [F] and [H] will be the same. In this example, '0ld-HitMaps' refers to the earlier HitMaps system which ran from October 2004 - February 2005, so the actual starting date would be some time during this interval.

[I] Update frequency: Maps can be updated daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on the traffic. The server sets the interval for you automatically, but this can be adjusted when you login using the Admin page. The intuition behind this is that 'relatively small increments' in dot placement on the map are barely noticeable, so in addition to the choice of daily/weekly/monthly, the number of visitors shown must also have grown by more than 10% since the last update. This does not mean that your grand (running) total needs to grow by this much, merely that the number shown on your currently-displayed map needs to grow by 10%. Thus, since the example current map shows, at the bottom [K], "Total number of visits depicted above = 38212" and it is scheduled for a weekly update, then the next update will be trigerred after at least 3822 new visits are logged, i.e. 1 more than 10%. Logging (tallying) of visitors continues even when no updates are shown, and can be seen in your personal tables shown when you login using the Admin page.

[J] Clustering distance: This distance is noticeably different for each map (noticeable for the ClustrMaps+ users where you can zoom in to continents). All visitors to a site within a given distance (see [J]) are clustered together into a larger dot. By clicking on the 'smaller clustrs' option (see [B]) you can see the corresponding view when the inter-dot clustering distance is greatly reduced.

[K] Number of 'dots' shown on this particular map: This number (38212 in this example) is different from [E] (41315 in this example), because some visits are based on an IP number that can not yet be resolved in the current database, i.e. the latitude/longitude are not yet known, so these are discarded as 'noise' - this is inevitable with the current state of the art, but the database is always being updated to reflect more accurate latitude/longitude knowledge. Total/subtotal discrepancies can also be cause by the gap between counter tallies (continous) and map updates (which may be daily, weekly, or monthly). Remember also, as mentioned in [E], that the 'running total' continues behind-the-scenes in real time, i.e. this map is 'rendered' (created and saved to disk on the main server) at a particular moment, but the totals are always updated in real time.

[L] Meanings of dot sizes: These are different for every map, since they must be computed relative to the total number of visitors shown. In this example, notice that the two dots in southernmost Africa represent, respectively, one cluster of 100-999 users and one cluster of 1-9

Please also see the FAQ for additional explanations and commentary.