Latest Stats as at 4/8/2010. ============================= These figures cover the 16-day period 16/7/2010 to 31/7/2010. Introduction ============ Firstly, there has been yet another surge in traffic. This time it was all in Spanish, and looking at a picture of an actress who is a smoker. These 1200 hits (1163 visits) have been removed from the main analysis and presented separately at the end of this report. Secondly, an error in the calculations for Search Engines has occurred from early in June. It made the Google figure about 1% lower and the figures for Bing (Microsoft) and Yahoo a bit higher. This error affected only the Search Engine results, and not the results for Browser or Operating system. Any tiny error in counting gives wrong answers for Bing and Yahoo. I believe it's very likely that other published or "industry" figures actually contain programming errors. Furthermore it's hard to get the "experts" to agree on the definitions and the method (sounds like those climate change factions, eh what). Companies that measure the net claim their figures must be correct because of their large sample sizes, but this glosses over the need for the method to be correct. Furthermore, it's now my experience that geography and the type of user both play a big part in the final result, and they do alter the interesting bits we are trying to measure. For example, results have demonstrated that Bing remains unpopular in Europe, while going OK in the USA. Different sub-groups have different computers from the average, and their use of mobile phones and/or Apple computers/products for surfing the net varies widely. Thirdly, the figures given previously for the 1st to 15th of July seem slightly out-of-character compared with all other results. Tests for surges of traffic from forums have proved negative, with only a couple of minor surges which were not removed from the analysis sample. Lastly, all figures below refer to hits and visits only from "humans". Search engines and robots have been excluded and, as far as possible, machines pretending to be humans have been excluded. The counting now includes only successful hits as counting towards visits, thus excluding the hackers who pretend to be humans but are requesting non-existent files in the hope of breaking in. Operating System Market Share ============================== For the period 16th to 31st July 2010, these percentage figures are based on visits, with earlier figures in brackets:- XP 47.4 (46.3, 48.8, 47.4, 48.8, 48.6, 48.1, 46.6, 49.4, 49.0, 48.9, 50.0) Vista 17.5 (19.0, 18.9, 20.1, 19.5, 20.6, 20.8, 22.4, 21.9, 22.1, 22.9) Windows-7 16.1 (14.7, 14.1, 13.5, 12.9, 12.3, 11.4, 11.4, 10.4, 9.7, 9.3) Other Windows 2.7 (2.9, 2.6, 2.6, 2.8, 2.8, 3.0, 2.5 (2.7, 4.0, 4.0, 4.3) Mac 10.6 (11.0, 10.4, 11.0, 11.0, 10.6, 11.6, 11.2, 10.4, 10.4, 10.0, 10.2) iPhone 2.5 (2.7, 2.1, 1.9, 1.7, 1.8, 2.0, 2.4, 2.1, 1.9, 2.1, 1.8, 2.0) Other Mobiles 2.3 (1.9, 2.1, 2.2, 1.8, 1.8, 1.7, 2.0, 1.8, 1.7, 1.5, 1.7) Linux 1.0 (1.5, 1.0, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.4, 1.4, 1.4, 1.3, 1.2, 1.4, 1.5) The "iPhone" result now includes both iPods and iPads. There were 67 iPad and 62 iPod visits, compared with 403 iPhone visits. Exactly as last time, portable devices are booming and, despite the bad press for the "grip of death", the iPhone-4 has sold out in Australia. The total sample size was 21006 visits by humans. Windows-7 is up and Vista is down. The growth in smart mobile phones counters the slow decline in Linux and pre-XP Windows. Browser Breakup =============== Percentages of visits for the period 16th to 31st July 2010:- IE 52.9 (51.7, 53.3, 52.4, 54.6, 54.6, 54.4, 52.3, 55.3, 57.6, 56.8, 57.2) FF 25.0 (25.3, 25.0, 25.7, 24.4, 24.7, 24.5, 26.0, 25.4, 23.5, 24.1, 24.9) Safari 11.1 (11.5, 10.3, 11.0, 10.4, 10.6, 11.5, 11.5, 9.8, 9.6, 9.6, 9.8) Chrome 7.3 (8.1, 7.8, 7.3, 6.9, 6.6, 6.2, 6.3, 5.9, 5.4, 5.7, 5.1, 5.1) Opera 1.7 (1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.7, 1.6, 1.6, 1.7, 1.5, 1.7, 1.5, 1.4, 1.5) All Others 2.0 (1.9, 1.9, 1.9, 2.0, 1.8, 1.8, 2.2, 2.1, 2.2, 2.1, 2.1) It's all fairly steady if you look across the last five figures or so. Current MSIE breakup is IE-8 48%, IE-7 32%, IE-6 16% and earlier versions 4%, representing a tiny shift towards Version 8. The sample size was 21559 visits by humans. Search Engines Share ==================== As already explained, an error in the calculations for Search Engines occurred from early in June. It made the Google figures a bit lower and the "wanna-be" rivals a bit higher. Below, the most recent four figures from the left have all been re-calculated, and all were done to exactly the same method. Earlier results at the right seem to be OK and have not been corrected. Percentage breakup of visits coming via search engines for July 16th to 31st, 2010:- Google 90.1 (89.8, 90.6, 91.1, 89.8, 90.7, 90.5, 90.1, 90.6, 89.1) Yahoo 4.5 (4.5, 3.9, 3.7, 3.7, 3.7, 3.8, 4.4, 4.5, 4.9, 4.2, 4.5, 4.8) Microsoft 2.9 (2.8, 3.0, 2.9, 3.7, 3.0, 2.9, 2.7, 2.5, 3.5, 3.0, 3.1) All others 2.5 (2.9, 2.4, 2.5, 2.8, 2.6, 2.8, 2.7, 2.4, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8) The sample size above was 12007 searches. My previous comments about a sudden jump by Bing to 3.3% were incorrect, as was the statement that Google was loosing market share, albeit slightly. Search Engines by Country ========================= As presented in previous reports, the differences between continents remains very clear. However the previous report's actual figures are flawed and should be ignored. Nevertheless, the overall result as seen here in Australia can be shown as six different distributions added together. Australia/NZ: Google 94%, Yahoo 2% Microsoft 2%, Others 2%. USA/Canada: Google 80%, Yahoo 11%, Microsoft 6% and Others 3%. UK/Ireland: Google 92%, Yahoo 1%, Microsoft 3% and Others 4%. Western Europe: Google 94%, Yahoo 1%, Microsoft 1%, Others 4%. Asia: Google 89% Yahoo 7%, Microsoft 1%, Others 2% Rest of World: Google 93%, Yahoo 3%, Microsoft 2%, Others 2%. As before, and regardless of previous calculation errors, clearly North America (and to some extent Asia and UK/Ireland) is in a different ball park to everybody else. Yahoo and Bing are not popular in mainland Europe, especially in Scandinavia. Yahoo is still popular in Asia at about 7% but Bing is quite unpopular at about 1%. Adding six distributions together to get a "whole of world" figure for Yahoo and Bing is very dubious statistics indeed. Australian surfers are very pro-Google with the latest local result at 94.3% from a sample of 4068 visits involving a search. The breakup of all searches from the six regions given above is Australia 36%, USA 23%, UK 11%, Europe 8%, Asia 12%, Rest 10%. Surge Analysis ============== The surge was 1200 hits or 1153 visits all looking at a picture of an American actress. The visits were mostly spread over a period of five days - 17th to 21st July. The post was on a Spanish language forum, so here is the country analysis reflecting this: Spain 31%, Mexico 10%, Argentina 10%, United States 9%, Portugal 6%, Chile 4% and Venezuela 3%. For the operating system, next note the strong preference for Windows plus a poor uptake of Windows-7: Windows XP 55%, Vista 27%, Windows-7 14%, other Windows 1%, Mac 3%, iPhone 0.7%, other mobiles 0.3%, Linux 0.3%. Again for browsers, quite an un-adventurous result: Internet Explorer 72%, Firefox 19%, Chrome 4%, Safari 3%, Opera 1%, Others 0.2%. ============================ =============================