Last month (July) it was the 22nd, in August it was the 17th - Ecuador are at it again. It is very appealing to think that the site is growing but this freak needs to go away first, before we can see if we are doing anything right or not. The visits from the UK are up and this probably has a lot to do with the Folk Festival in particular and tourism in general. That is not to say that we do not want visitors from abroad - we do. It is very gratifying to see a lot of hits from other countries. Our league table is: USA 1657; UK 810; Ecuador 731; Europe 133; Canada 117; Australia 74; Asia 53; Africa 8. The not known, unaccounted for are probably search engine robots. We like it here on Dartmoor and it makes us happy, if others enjoy looking at the place as well. Another way to view things is from the key words entered into the search engines that find us. If things quieten down a bit next month, maybe I will find time to do some analysis of these. In the meanwhile, below is the FOs reply to my query :

Dear Pete, Thank you for your e-mail a recent surge of 'hits' on your website from Ecuador.  I am unaware of any reason why your website should be receiving these 'hits'.  You may wish to contact the Ecuador Embassy in London to see if they can shed any light on the matter.  The contact details of the Embassy are given below.  Unfortunately this does not include an e-mail address: Embassy of Ecuador

Head of Mission:  HE Señor Eduardo Cabezas

Travel Advice Unit
Consular Directorate
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
Consular.fco@gtnet.gov.uk
Tel: 0 870 606 0290

ps I have also noticed from my stats that the only Continent that has not visited the site is Antarctica. I have sent a couple of e-mails to teams working there , inviting them to have a look. We will see next month if this has changed. In the meanwhile, have a look at this reply I had from somewhere called the Big Dead Place