Where’d my dots go? That was the question that came to mind when I logged onto my blog just now. You know that map on the right side bar that shows the geographical location of where people are who are viewing this blog? When you click on the map, it says there are 5,432 visitors, but only six dots on the map. I went to the ClustrMaps FAQ to find out what happened. Here is some of what they had to say.

Maps get archived at regular intervals (weekly, monthly, or yearly), as described in our explanatory timeline. The interval is specified by you on your Admin page see the ‘Admin‘ link at the top of any ClustrMaps page). By default, archives happens yearly, but are sometimes delayed until a suitable current update has occurred, which is probably what has just taken place in the case of your own maps.

Naturally, people always like to have ever-more-dots, but the regular archive is the only way we can avoid having the maps turn into a ‘giant red smear’, and continue delivering the scalable service that everyone has come to expect.

That explains it. Here is a thumbnail of last year’s map, 7/11/06 through 7/11/07.