Show Finders and their home countries on my owned description geocache page

[+TheView]

I have a geocache in Haines, Alaska where cruise ships frequently are in port. Geocaching passengers from all over the world find my Haines, Alaska geocache. I want to show on the Description page of the geocache how many finders and from which are their home countries have found my geocache. How can I do this?

[Keystone]

You can use flagcounter.com to track the IP address locations of visitors to your cache page.  That's because this website is approved under Geocaching HQ's current policy about images hosted on third-party websites. 

 

Of course, that site only reflects page views.  Someone from a distant country could view your cache page 50 times while planning a trip, but then they wind up never finding your cache.  Or, someone could plan their trip to your cache entirely offline, so that they will never show up as a visitor to your cache page. 

 

There is no functionality for automatically tracking the home countries of the actual finders of your cache.  That's due in part to Geocaching HQ's privacy policy.  That policy allows geocachers to hide their statistics from public view, and not to share their information with third party authorized API partners -- such as Project-GC.com.  That website has a feature that shows the country flags for all visitors to all your caches (but not for just one particular cache). 

 

You could construct a map yourself based on finders of this popular cache, but you will run into people who do not share their home country or their statistics.  I'm sure you can appreciate these privacy limitations, as you yourself have chosen to exercise them.

[+TheView]

Excellent reply and comments Keystone. Concise and Clear and I learned something new(l must have inadvertently set my account to not share). I fixed that immediately. This is not a dire situation so 100% accuracy is not necessary. I believe the countries will be accurate overtime but the number of finders may never be. 

[+TheView]

I added the Flag Counter, reran the page but it seems that it doesn’t pickup previous finds.

[+TeamRabbitRun]

 

I have a Travel Bug that's doing a world tour.

 

On its page I'm manually updating the list of all the DIFFERENT places it's been.

 

It seems like you're looking for an automated solution that just displays the data, but I consider what I'm doing part of the enjoyment of monitoring where's my Duck's paddling.

 

Maybe you should reassess why you want to show this list of countries and ask yourself if keeping the list updated manually might not be worth it. I would think it is, otherwise, why monitor it? Aren't you getting a kick out of all the places finders are coming from?

 

Sounds stupid, but I think of it as staying in touch with the little guy and acknowledging its travels (sniff).

 

I applaud your desire to reflect the diversity of that cache's horde of finders. Sounds like a fine enhancement for the page.

 

What I do works for me, but I'm a career IT guy who's not necessarily a fan of automation. YMMV.

[+K13]

On 6/12/2021 at 11:15 AM, TheView said:

I added the Flag Counter, reran the page but it seems that it doesn’t pickup previous finds.

The flag counter only adds flags for those who visit the cache page, not finders of the cache. A person could get the cache information from a Pocket Query, use a GPS to find the cache, then use GSAK for logging, and their flag would never get raised on your counter. 

[+TheView]

Excellent reply and comments Keystone. Concise and Clear and I learned something new(l must have inadvertently set my account to not share). I fixed that immediately. This is not a dire situation so 100% accuracy is not necessary. I believe the countries will be accurate overtime but the number of finders may never be. 
I periodically look at my Travel Bug logs to see where they have been. For my Alaska Geocache, because it is located in Haines, AK where cruise ships frequent, there are many catchers from foreign countries who make the Find. I am not looking for a 100% accuracy, just a guesstimate. I could ask cachers to state their country of origin and read the logs which aren’t that many and keep a manual log as suggested from TeamRabbitRun. I may compare the flag counter to a manual record.  I worked in IT and engineering and automation was paramount for efficiency and allowance for creativeness for those desiring to do so.

Originally, we put out geocaches like we found. Now I mostly put out difficult Challenges so I don’t want or expect many Finders’ logs. 
 

I appreciate all for pointing out how a flag counter may not convey what I was seeking….thanks to all who responded

Edited June 17, 2021 by TheView