Going Japanese

The question right now is: why has this blog suddenly become popular in Japan?  I say 'popular', it's a matter of a number of hits from Japan over the past week or so, but it's so unusual to see traffic from that part of the world, when I start receiving traffic from multiple sources in Japan, it is very noticeable.  Now, you might well be wondering how I can be sure that they are from Japan when, as I've noted previously here, the location of a visitor indicated by some of the most popular stats tracking services isn't always their true location, (I'm still in El Segundo, for instance, according to one of my tracking services, although my back up service is now giving my location as London, still incorrect but at least in the right country)?   Well, in the case of these recent visitors, as well as their given location, the ISPs indicated for them are all Japanese-based, indicating that they really are in Japan.  But what's bringing them here?  The main referrer seems to be Google.  Unfortunately, as Google nowadays withholds search terms, (unless you use Google Analytics, of course), it has so far been impossible to ascertain what I might have written here recently which has attracted the attention of a handful of people in Japan.  That said, the fact that they show a referrer at all would seem to rule out the possibility that they are bots of some kind.  Mind you, the do all seem to use the Pale Moon browser, a Firefox derivative which, generally speaking, I rarely see.  Maybe it's popular in Japan.  Who knows?

These sudden clusters of hits from a specific location occur from time to time and have always fascinated me.  For many years I was mystified by the popularity amongst Turkish visitors of the 'Doctor Sex' story over on The Sleaze.  It was the only page they visited.  Eventually the traffic petered out as they obviously realised it wasn't what they were looking for.  (I eventually concluded that there must be some kind of porn performer called 'Doctor Sex' in Turkey).  Then there's the Portuguese mystery.  Every so often I get a visitor from Portugal who, over a period of several days, clicks through, quite literally, every page on The Sleaze. Their exact location in Portugal and their ISP varies, implying there might be more than one person involved.  The visits aren't frequent, with up to a year between them, but when they do visit, the pattern is always the same.  Who are they?  What are they looking for?  Again, who knows?  Then there are the regular visitors from the UK who, often on a daily basis, click on the home page, but then go no further, even when new stories have been posted.  They don't seen to be bots, so, what are they doing?  Really, I'm curious.  Of course, before wrapping things up, I feel I should mention the 'West Country Stalker' who haunted The Sleaze some years ago.  Again, they always visited the same pages, often daily.  Although I'm sure it was one person, day-by-day their given location would shift around the West of England: sometimes from Devon, sometimes Somerset, sometimes Dorset and so on.  I had my suspicions as to their identity, but could never prove anything.  If only Arthur C Clarke and his Mysterious World were still around - I'm sure they could have got to the bottom of it all.