People who visit this web site (some statistics)
Robert Nyman has published People who visit this web site (some statistics) on his blog, so I thought I would do a quick comparison with mine. In theory we write for the same audience, so here are my stats for the past nine months.
Where people come from
No surprisesthat the US is number one for both of us. Australia features very heavily in my stats more so that Sweden in Robert’’s. The reason I would say is because I do tend to focus on local events and issues than Robert and attract more local visitors. If you remove the local visitors, the statistics are surprisingly similar, the same countries in almost the same order, with only slight variations in percentages.
Platforms
I do have larger percentage of Mac visitors 17% compared to 13.5% and less Linux users 3% compared to 4% with Robert. However, this is probably the result of the local bias, a big number of the local web designers and developers I know and an even bigger number of the ones I meet at WD06 used Macs and these are people that regularly read my blog (or they massage my ego and tell me they do).
Equally very few Australian web people, ie only me and one other I know use Linux outside the server environment.
Web browsers
Other than a few more Safari users as the result of more Mac visitors, surprisingly similar results. 52% Firefox to 32% Internet Explorer.
Robert believes that this is because Firefox is the browser of choice of the web standards-aware web developer. I tend to disagree, the big surprise for me in looking at my stats was that 50% of my website visitors come via google. I would expect my regular readers to be heavily bias towards standards compliant browsers, but people searching on hacking phpbb templates. It would appear that more people are using firefox than just the web standards-aware web developer.
October 14th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
Nick,
Thanks for sharing! Always interesting to see someone else’s statistics as well.
Regarding Firefox: I’d rather say that it is very common amongst web developers, but it has really caught on with other people as well. Since it’s my favorite web browser, it gladdens me to see it. :-)
October 14th, 2006 at 8:04 pm
I don’t think (much that I would like it to be true) that Firefox has taken off at all outside the techie and leading edge adopters. Case in point 95% of my clients have said, “What there is another browser?” They think that IE is all there is as it comes with the computer (windows, sorry mac folk) so it must be good. Some even think that the web is a product of the software (browser) and don’t question why they are using IE. They see it as — Its whats on the computer, it gets the job done, why change. Until browsers like FF get on the standard PC OEM builds it will always be a marginal. Sad but it’s reality.
Needless the stats are interesting. But they typical of a tech blog.
October 14th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
I was surprised on a recent holiday to Fiji to find one internet cafe had set up all its PCs with Firefox. It’s the first time I’ve come across this situation (been a while since I’ve been in an internet cafe in Oz) but it partly backs up your point that it’s not only techies who are using it.
October 14th, 2006 at 10:46 pm
Gary, read the comments on Robert’s post and see that FF has moved beyond the techie and leading edge adopters.
October 15th, 2006 at 5:53 pm
Read them before, I disagree, looking at the stats of all my clients, FF is still sitting in the 10–15% mark. It’s still in the small margins compared to IE 5/6 with 70% (10%,60%).
The real mover from my view is the use of the Mac OS from 1–3% to 5–10%. This has all happened since OS X. That is the one that I think people should be looking at.
Nick you should (if you a haven’t already) user track you Mac stats, see if you are getting the same IPs etc, this would help tell you who the users where.
I love FF, and really hope and pray it will/can maintain the momentum verses IE. But presently it seems only to woken Microsoft up and caused them to consider the issues that FF has addresses in its user interface and standards compliance. It now remains to be seen if FF 3 can avoid becoming bloatware and still maintain the core leading feature set. And what Microsoft have on offer with IE8 (I know their are people with a good idea on this already).
Still it is all moot. If FF is not distributed with the OS on a PC or Mac as the OEM bundle then the average, non techie user is just not going to even be aware that it is present. The corporates are (in general) going to go with what is on the pre installed HD most of the time. This is where the market is, simple business reality.
..Much that I don’t like it..
However it’s still good to see FF high on various Blog sites etc. (Blog reading etc I still put in the techie and leading edge adopters list till the RSS function is in a common browser and people know how to use it, i.e. IE 7) .
October 15th, 2006 at 11:03 pm
Gary, I would still say that FF has moved on from the browser of choice for bleeding edge (say the top 5% of internet users) to browser used by a sizeable proportion of the leading edge (the next 20 or 25% on internet users). The people who use the internet heavily, read blogs, use Web 2.0 apps, buy stuff regularly online, etc. Hence the high incidence of FF on some sites, including the 50% of visitors who come here from Google.
The increase in Mac users is the ipod effect. People who bought ipods ended up being cross sold Apple computers.
I have to admit the last generation of ibooks and the macbooks are excellent value for money laptops, and I will be one of the four people in our office (out of a total of four staff) who will be buying the next generation macbooks.
October 16th, 2006 at 9:12 am
Nick — Okay I will agree that FF has moved into the leading edge adopters, but that is an easy to achieve outcome. They now have the hard slog, moving into the conservative market place. I would place heavy web use as being on the web for 3+ hours a day. Were as average web usage (banking, online purchasing, page reading) being around 1 or less hours a day. This is the market FF must make head roads into. Or the best they will do is around 20% for the total market share. It is possible.
Have you tracked what people are coming from Google to your site to look at, as this will give you some indication of the audience. You see with your (total) numbers it could still be the tech community etc.
Not sure on the ipod effect. Can’t see the transition being that smooth.
Agree on the latest round of macbooks etc, used to have an older iMac (pre intel) it was just too slow (and crashed a lot)… So I sold it. But looking at the new macbooks, it would fill a few needs here… think I need to go get me one!