People expect a map to poll. This one does not. The dot appears because a browser asked for the widget and the service recorded that ask. The next person who loads the map sees the visits collected since the picture was last drawn. There is no schedule in between.
What "real time" means here
A visit is stored as the request arrives. Open your stats page after a test load and the visit should be there without waiting for a cron. The public widget is a picture of recent visits, regenerated when it is fetched, not a video stream of every IP. "Real time" means you do not wait until tomorrow's report. It does not mean a dot animates onto the map in the same second on every reader's screen. Caching of the image can delay the picture by a short time even when the hit is already stored.
If you need the count for a decision, use the stats page. If you need the picture for the sidebar, the widget is that picture. They can be a few minutes apart when a cache sits in the middle. They should not be a day apart. A day apart means the widget is not being requested. Check that it is recording.
What stops the update
- The snippet is missing on the page you are loading.
- A cache is serving old HTML from before you pasted the snippet.
- A content-security policy or an extension blocked the image.
- You are looking at a different site's widget than the one you just installed.
None of those are fixed by refreshing harder. They are fixed by confirming the request in the browser's network panel. The count only moves when that request succeeds. That is the same rule as what a counter counts: no request, no increment, no new dot.
