"we were targeting English-speaking countries only, so I don't know why we were getting hits from India and Egypt and stuff"
Seriously? Seriously?
I mean... no, never mind. "Confused" doesn't even begin to describe it. Given that the US doesn't have an official language, India is more of an English speaking country than the US is.
Relax, no need for that. Obviously India is an English-speaking country, but when we targeted "English" speakers we expected a higher percentage of our traffic to come from Western sources like the US and Canada, instead of 95%+ from click farms in India. We found that wasn't the case, so we switched to country-specific targeting. Thanks for educating me, though.
Sorry, it's a bit of a knee-jerk reaction caused by the number of American sites that treat non-US visitors like it's a nuisance they even dare to visit, as if an English language .com site is an "Americans-only" sign.
(This is especially insulting if the site in question represents a company/brand that actually operates internationally.)
Also, English speakers are not limited to countries with English as an (un)official language. Just an example, LinkedIn had 3 million Dutch users before they introduced a Dutch language interface. I don't know what business you're in, but that's a lot of creditcards...
Seriously? Seriously?
I mean... no, never mind. "Confused" doesn't even begin to describe it. Given that the US doesn't have an official language, India is more of an English speaking country than the US is.