From Whence Does the Traffic Hail?

[Gruntled]

I've been seeing more and more sites start installing GeoIP databases and updatting their stats packages to see where the traffic is coming from.

Where does your traffic come from?

Would it affect how you design your pages if you knew that most of your traffic was coming from a certain part of the world? Would it cause you to shift your target niche if your traffic were coming primarily from, say, the Netherlands as opposed to traffic from the US and Canada?

At what point would you consider creating a mirror subsite translated to another target language?

[Evil Chris]

I'm waiting for answers to this one.
I'd like to know myself!

[Gruntled]

Maybe there are less webmasters using GeoIP here than I had assumed.

GeoIP takes the first three octets of a website visitor's IP address, and checks it against an insternal database to figure what country or part of the country that visitor is coming from.

You can use scripts to detect and redirect, or even to target banners to the traffic.

I'm sure you've all seen the exit or logout page on Yahoo where the banner to the right advertises some utility company specific to your state or even your city...

[LaughingEyes]

Knowing where your traffic comes from and geo targeting that traffic has always been the key to running a successful site. Yes, if I had traffic coming from a foreign country I would not only design the site to suit that country but also look at payment options. Am I sending them to a sponsor that offers dialers as a form of payment? Is my site in the appropriate language? etc, etc.

[Black Dog]

We've been using GeoIP for a while to ban users from most non-western countries. We were forced to do that due to fraud.

We also use HitBox to track stats and they have a great geo-report. I was surprised to learn that 5% of my members speak German!

B

[Gruntled]

is 5% of overall traffic enough to warrrant translating the text on the site?

A large prcentage of Germans speak English.

[LaughingEyes]

IMHO it depends on how many hits that 5% translates into. IE: 100 hits or 100,000 hits.

Several years back I had a discussion, well actual several discussions, regarding optimizing for both Windows and Netscape. It was my opinion that since only 12% of my traffic were Netscape users it wasn't worth the added effort on my part. As long as I was serving the 88% and they were making me money that was okay with me. I preferred to build more and more for that 88% than take the extra time for the 12% that would have lessened the time I could spend servicing the 88%.

So it is up to you to decide whether it is cost effective based on the amount of time and the expected return you will get for the extra work.

[kaustic]

Gruntled

Great discussion. I have always used awstats on most of my web sites. It gives you reports on everything you would ever want to know. But since, at the time, the sites weren't porn, and I wasn't using them for profit, I didnt care where my surfers were commin from, just glad they stopped by. But now, I'm definitely going to consider all of the afformentioned information to help customize my site. Thank you for bringing up the personalizing scripts concept you see on yahoo (local electric company example)

I think the more personal you can get your site, the more chances you have of getting a good customer return.

Thanks for the spark gruntled...

[Gruntled]

LaughingEyes -

You were probably making this decision at the time when web design classes were focusing on developing with neutral standards -- only using features and tags that translate for both platforms. IE was supporting nonstandard tags that didn't work in Netscape and vice-versa. by getting new web developers to adhere to cross-platform pages and strict HTML, both platforms were forced to come to the middle ground. there were neat effects for each that got lost, but now it's much easier to build something that looks right.

[Gruntled]

Kaustic,

It was something that I've noticed being put into use lately, and was wondering if it was mostly instaled as a requirement for some script or affiliate program, or if anyone was checking on the data that comes out of it, and doing something with it.

It's a great idea to check incoming traffic and redirect to a translated page or to use different banners based on the return to target more.

They have targeted news at CNN.com, but they have a pop-up that asks you which content you want, rather than doing the work for you based on your IP.

I imagine that if a visitor hits the site from the Czech republic, it would be great to send them automatically and transparently to the Czech translation of the site. It's extreme customer service, and once set up, it is automatic.

[Panky]

Again it boils down to cost effectiveness.

After at least 6mths - 1yr, I would analyze where my #2 -5 top rankings for traffic and sales were coming from.

If Japan came in at number 2, then I would consider more options to cater to the Japanese. On what levels I would cater to them, would depend on how much traffic and sales the Japanese were producing.

It's all a matter of watching and analyzing your stats. It's a matter of understanding your stats and what niche(s) works for that particular chunk of traffic.

When you begin to translate your site into other languages, things can get a little tricky. For example, would you just change all your front end, including ads, and then leave one members area for all, or would you change the entire site including the members area? Would you need to have staff who can speak and read in the language(s) the site has been translated to for customer service and sales?

They are tough questions. Definitely not easy decisions. It would also depend on what business you are running. Another thing to consider is, if you change the site to other languages to get them through the front door, and then they discover the back end of the site, including customer service, was all in English, would that effect your sales and/or member retention?

[Gruntled]

That is also a consideration. The more complex your site and business model, the more expensive it would be. It would biol down to doing it if the return is high enough, period.

With most adult sites, the content is the same, and translating the text on the pages is not going to be a huge or expensive undertaking. A lot of people just run it though babblefish, and get a contractor who is fluent in the other language to proofread it. Of course, if the text is updated frequently, you're back to the same conundrum.