Google's Mac Stats Up

[MacRumors]

The Mac platform has made a small step forward in Google's February 2004 Zeitgeist (http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html). Mac browsers accounted for 4% of Google's traffic for February 2004.

The Mac platform was last at 4% in March 2003, but has been hovering at 3% since that time in Google's stats. The peak was at 5% in September 2002 (http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist/zeitgeist-sept02.html).

Of further interest, "ipod" was the 9th most popular search term in January 2004 (http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist/zeitgeist-jan04.html). This coincided with the release of the iPod Mini.

[nagromme]

Now add in all the folks who use Mac but set their browser to identify itself as Windows IE... might be back up to 5% :)

[theipodgod16]

Now add in all the folks who use Mac but set their browser to identify itself as Windows IE... might be back up to 5% :)

how do you do that?

[hotwire132002]

how do you do that?

The Safari debug menu...

To enable it, exit safari, go to Terminal, and type:

defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1

Press enter, then open safari. Voila, it's there :D

[BrandonRP0123]

The Safari debug menu...

To enable it, exit safari, go to Terminal, and type:

defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1

Press enter, then open safari. Voila, it's there :D


Or flip it on with TinkerTool.

[titaniumducky]

The Safari debug menu...

To enable it, exit safari, go to Terminal, and type:

defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1

Press enter, then open safari. Voila, it's there :D

WHY would you do that? Does it fix the compatibility issues caused by websites expecting you to be using Windows IE 6?

[tveric]

Now add in all the folks who use Mac but set their browser to identify itself as Windows IE... might be back up to 5% :)

Out of people that visit this site, that's probably a significant number (read: geeks like you and me) - however, I find it difficult to believe that there are millions of people in this country doing that. If you assume that there are at least 100 million people searching Google (it's probably higher) it would take 1 million Mac users going into the Terminal and tinkering with that setting for the stat to go to 5%. No chance.

[msconvert]

This could be very misleading. This is only google reporting the stats. Guess what sits at the top of every safari window - a google search tool. This increase experienced by google is more likely an indication of users switching from their own search tool like yahoo. This by no means is an indication of market percent or even internet use.

[Stella]

Why is this page 2 - its fact, not a rumour?

[arn]

Why is this page 2 - its fact, not a rumour?

http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/07/20030725152925.shtml

[montecristo]

This could be very misleading. This is only google reporting the stats. Guess what sits at the top of every safari window - a google search tool. This increase experienced by google is more likely an indication of users switching from their own search tool like yahoo. This by no means is an indication of market percent or even internet use.
I agree that this is probably not a very good indication of actual mac penetration or market share. Macs in corporate offices is probably a smaller percentage of the corporate market than macs in the consumer market/education market etc. Since I would guess that a lot of googling is done at work (remembering that these stats only look at computer users to begin with), there is probably an unfair skewing of google stats toward PC users. I would bet that mac users are definitely higher than 4%, but some mac users (like myself) will have to use google on a PC machine at work, several times a day, so there appear to be many more PC googlers than Mac googlers.

By the way, I think there are over 200 million google searches per day. I don't know how may of the 100 million US households have computers, or how many computers in the US are wired to the net.

[bousozoku]

How many people use Sherlock for searching instead of going to Google?

Even though Firefox has a Google search area in the toolbar, I generally open up Sherlock before opening the browser. Once the browser is open, it's a different story unless I need alternative searches.

[Savage Henry]

How many people use Sherlock for searching instead of going to Google?

Even though Firefox has a Google search area in the toolbar, I generally open up Sherlock before opening the browser. Once the browser is open, it's a different story unless I need alternative searches.


Barely even touched Sherlock. If I can't get it Googled, it probably ain't even worth finding.

[jsw]

Out of people that visit this site, that's probably a significant number (read: geeks like you and me) - however, I find it difficult to believe that there are millions of people in this country doing that. If you assume that there are at least 100 million people searching Google (it's probably higher) it would take 1 million Mac users going into the Terminal and tinkering with that setting for the stat to go to 5%. No chance.

Or one really active Mac Googler. ;)

[msconvert]

I would bet that mac users are definitely higher than 4%, but some mac users (like myself) will have to use google on a PC machine at work, several times a day, so there appear to be many more PC googlers than Mac googlers.

You are logical, but the point that I was making is that you are only looking at google. Google's service is a human interface requiring a human at the other end of the computer. Most of the internet does not require a human at the other end most of it is still machine to machine transactions. There are a significant number of machines in a closet down the hall that don't search google.

So what you said is a fair conclusion for "humans searching the internet". But these "consumers" still represent a small portion of the computers connected to the internet. So I would argue that the true number machines is actually smaller than 4%.

[jsw]

Of course, given the vastly superior intelligence, knowledge, and wisdom of the typical Mac user versus the typical PC user, you'd expect fewer trips to Google by Mac users. The 4% that used it were likely switchers who hadn't yet attained enlightenment.

</strong ;) >

[1macker1]

I use YaaAAaAAHhhhHHHhhOooOOOooOOOo!

[MrMacMan]

By the way, I think there are over 200 million google searches per day. I don't know how may of the 100 million US households have computers, or how many computers in the US are wired to the net.
According to Slashdot 75% of the US now has access to the internet.

So yeah 75% of 100 Million is how many... ;)



Isn't yahoo google powered?

[allenhuffman]

This by no means is an indication of market percent or even internet use.

True... But at the same time, market share only means something if you deal with that specific market. If only 3 out of 100 computers were Macs, but google.com was visited 80% of the time by Macs (meaning PCs just did not use it), the Mac would be very important to them.

On my own servers (atthefaire.com renaissance site, for example), Macs are very low percentage-wise in overall visitors but because the PC market is so fragmented between OSes and browser versions and such, I find that Mac OS X Safari users are actually visiting more than, say, Windows NT 4.x IE -- when counted as an individual group.

This doesn't mean much, of course, since stats can be used and abused at will, but I think it's interesting that there are more Mac users visiting my site than certain types of PC users. Imagine if the stats could detect BRAND of PC? More Apple hardware visiting than Gateway? Who knows.

Neat, though. I never used Google before Safari. I always thought Alta Vista was the best overall search, and Yahoo was best for "good category" searches. But today I use Google and like it better, so I guess it's not the same as IE becoming the #1 browser over Netscape just because it was the deafult since for years IE was awful compared to NS.

Ramble on...

[Knox]

Isn't yahoo google powered?

It was until a few weeks ago - they swapped over to Inktomi which Yahoo bought, er a while ago... just like they bought Overture, to go after Google's AdWords.

[dukemeiser]

I would have thought that Google usage would be way up seeing that Safari has it built in.

[The Cheat]

How many people use Sherlock for searching instead of going to Google?

People actually use Sherlock??? I think I looked at that piece of junk once when I first got my Mac, used it for about 2 minutes before I realized it had nothing I couldn't do faster and easier just using a browser. What a waste of time.

[nesbitt_a]

I would have thought that Google usage would be way up seeing that Safari has it built in.

My thoughts exactly dukemeiser - if anything the stats should have stayed the same or gone up, not down. Maybe people aren't using the safari feature as much as Apple would have hoped?

-- Andrew.

[jsw]

People actually use Sherlock??? I think I looked at that piece of junk once when I first got my Mac, used it for about 2 minutes before I realized it had nothing I couldn't do faster and easier just using a browser. What a waste of time.

I use it to find movie times quite often. At that task, it excels. The Yellow Pages aren't too bad, either. Then there's the dictionary....

Obviously, you could do all these things via the web. But, honestly, it's NOT faster and easier than Sherlock.

If enough Mac users use Sherlock, could that possibly skew Google? Doubtful. It probably uses Google underneath for some searches.

[ralphh]

I wonder what percentage of users would be necessary for Google to consider breaking out the Safari stats from "other." Knowing that we could at least bracket the number of Mac users going to Google because it's on the toolbar. It's too bad there's no detailed stats page.

[dho]

About sherlock:

I used to find it to be a piece of crap. After the MAJOR speed enhancements in panther I find myself using it more then before. But Never for searching the web :). When i say use it more I mean using the translator once a month while doing my spanish homework :)

[flyfish29]

Sherlock = 0 searches
Safari Google box = hundreds if not thousands of searches.

Use it all the time as I like the "history" feature of being able to either go back and see what I searched for (or my wife :D ) or go back to a search to go deeper in the Goooooooooooooogle list of sites.

Images google is very handy as well.

google me anytime baby! :D

Remember, M$ users are seraching day and night for help sites, drivers, replacement parts, new computers that might come close to what macs do, etc. which would greatly increase their search numbers. :D

[Wonder Boy]

The Safari debug menu...

To enable it, exit safari, go to Terminal, and type:

defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1

Press enter, then open safari. Voila, it's there :D

ok. now how do i get rid of it? thanks.

[bousozoku]

I use it to find movie times quite often. At that task, it excels. The Yellow Pages aren't too bad, either. Then there's the dictionary....

Obviously, you could do all these things via the web. But, honestly, it's NOT faster and easier than Sherlock.

If enough Mac users use Sherlock, could that possibly skew Google? Doubtful. It probably uses Google underneath for some searches.

You can be certain that Sherlock does not access Google at all. They would be charging Apple for their services.

On another thought, I have a Flash to Google source project. I could have it automatically contact Google for various searches 24/7, thereby increasing the Macintosh percentages. :D

dho:

You're supposed to do your homework, not let it do itself. :D

[Vonnie]

According to Slashdot 75% of the US now has access to the internet.

So yeah 75% of 100 Million is how many... ;)



Isn't yahoo google powered?

The rest of the world is also a pretty important factor to consider in these google statistics...

[backspinner]

Use it all the time as I like the "history" feature of being able to either go back and see what I searched for
That's nice, I just learned something new! I use the search box all the time but didn't know about this. The little arrow means something different in Firefox which I never use (change search engine), so I didn't have a look there in Safari.

[plasticparadox]

I love Sherlock.. I use it for the translation feature. It's incredibly fast and easy to use, as opposed to services like worldlingo.com or Babelfish. Also, Sherlock's translator doesn't have any advertising or product tie-ins at all. Fantastic feature.

I probably wouldn't use Sherlock for searching the web, however. I do use Safari's Google search box quite a bit.

[jsw]

ok. now how do i get rid of it? thanks.

Change the '1' to a '0' in the command.

[crenz]

Can someone post a screen shot? I can't see the page, it's being overriden by the German version which doesn't have all the info.

[Wonder Boy]

Change the '1' to a '0' in the command.


looks good, thank you.

[richland]

Of course, given the vastly superior intelligence, knowledge, and wisdom of the typical Mac user versus the typical PC user, you'd expect fewer trips to Google by Mac users.
</strong ;) >


you forgot /sarcasm :p lol

[visor]

This could be very misleading. This is only google reporting the stats. Guess what sits at the top of every safari window - a google search tool. This increase experienced by google is more likely an indication of users switching from their own search tool like yahoo. This by no means is an indication of market percent or even internet use.

well google sits on every opera, ie, and firefox in the toolbar as well...

[maxterpiece]

I wonder what percentage of users would be necessary for Google to consider breaking out the Safari stats from "other." Knowing that we could at least bracket the number of Mac users going to Google because it's on the toolbar. It's too bad there's no detailed stats page.

I would guess that IE for mac is still more popular than safari. The casual user is still just more comfortable using IE because of its household name status. Also, any computer running OS 9 or an older version of OS X either doesn't have the option to or may not have downloaded safari. IE is still the most compatible browser with Netscape/Mozilla in second and Safari in third. Speedwise it's obviously a different story. On my G5 netscape is generally the fastest (it seems to have the best caching so everything works straight through on the processor... less crunching), but on any slower machine, safari is better than netscape. I'll end my digression here.

[redAPPLE]

Now add in all the folks who use Mac but set their browser to identify itself as Windows IE... might be back up to 5% :)

why would one want to configure that?

[wowser]

Out of people that visit this site, that's probably a significant number (read: geeks like you and me) - however, I find it difficult to believe that there are millions of people in this country doing that. If you assume that there are at least 100 million people searching Google (it's probably higher) it would take 1 million Mac users going into the Terminal and tinkering with that setting for the stat to go to 5%. No chance.

this was what i was thinkiing (as a non - techy_)

[yamabushi]

Now add in all the folks who use Mac but set their browser to identify itself as Windows IE... might be back up to 5% :)
titaniumducky, redAPPLE - Setting your browser to identify itself as IE can enable some web sites to load that would otherwise return an error that your browser is not supported. This can also change the appearance of some sites in certain cases. I usually leave my browser set to identify as itself unless I have a problem with a particular site.

[Kingsnapped]

I remember seeing this somewhere when I was poking around safari. I noticed that it was identifying itself as IE. I know I didn't change it... maybe it's on as default?

[MacFan26]

I use it to find movie times quite often. At that task, it excels. The Yellow Pages aren't too bad, either. Then there's the dictionary....


I use Sherlock for movies too, it's much more fun to be able to see the trailer, the times, and all available theaters in my area without using a browser. At least for movies, I think it's faster, but since day one I never used it for searching the internet.

[tji]

Has anyone else noticed that Google gives referral links when using Safari?

With safari, the links it returns are of the form "http://www.google.com/url?http://wwww.macrumors.com/" -- so, it returns you to google, which bounces you to the desired destination. This allows Google to track which URL's you are actually clicking on, which is useful for weighting URLs, marketing statistics, etc.

With other browsers, the link leads directly to the desired site. So, google has no way of knowing which URL you clicked on.


Since safari has the 'status bar' disabled by default, most users don't see what the real URL is (which is really dangerous with all the "phishing" attacks going on).

[coolsoldier]

How many people use Sherlock for searching instead of going to Google?

Well, technically, I do both. I use the sherlock Google plugin (sherlock://software.teradome.com/sherlock.xml?action=subscribe) to do my searching.

[SiriusExcelsior]

Has anyone considered that people might not be using either Safari or IE?

I use iCab alot (and its ID is set to IE6 and WinXP) and it's allowed me to get into websites that i am sometimes refused entry into. Opera, as far as i know, allows the changing of ID as well. BTW i do use IE sometimes for websites that don't display properly in iCab... Macrumors for example :P
And since i'm on OS 9 i can't use Safari (i would love to tho!)

Anyway.. to the point, Google would obviously log these queries as being from Win users... i don't know how many people that use icab/ opera set their identity to Win/ IE, but this reason along with others may account for the "lower-than-expected" figures.

[wdlove]

I rarely use IE now. Have been using Google exclusively. Occasionally use OmniWeb.

[ClimbingTheLog]

WHY would you do that? Does it fix the compatibility issues caused by websites expecting you to be using Windows IE 6?

Yes, most of them. Some still use IE-specific code but most are standard DHTML/EMCA-script but they still specifiy IE/Win only.

It's because they're bigots but the excuse they give is for their helpdesk. They think customer service is telling you to **** off unless you go buy a new computer to give them business.

[sambo.]

don't forget that there are still a lot of business' out there who bought G3's and are still running OS 8.6 (or heaven forbid: 9.x) using microsloth internot (un)explorer, what will they register as?
besides, the OS-X revolution is only really beginning. as the older (and popular) G3's and early G4's start to get replaced, more and more OS-X users will come on-line (excuse the pune, or play-on-wordz.....)
:eek: ;)

[Amani]

I'm ashamed to admit, but I have yet to use Google search in Safari. I've always just used Yahoo search (I still use the Yahoo for email purposes, so that's why I do most of my searching using that engine.) I like Safari much better than IE, but since I started using Safari about 2 months ago, I don't think I've made use of all its capabilities. So I'll give the Google/Search a try for now on.

This is another topic, but what do folks think about Google's Gmail? A gigabyte of email space is seriously sweet, but I'm not sure about the privacy issues.

[dxp4acu]

I'm ashamed to admit, but I have yet to use Google search in Safari. I've always just used Yahoo search (I still use the Yahoo for email purposes, so that's why I do most of my searching using that engine.) I like Safari much better than IE, but since I started using Safari about 2 months ago, I don't think I've made use of all its capabilities. So I'll give the Google/Search a try for now on.

This is another topic, but what do folks think about Google's Gmail? A gigabyte of email space is seriously sweet, but I'm not sure about the privacy issues.

I don't get the privacy issues. Its not like someone from Google will be sitting there reading your email!! It will just have a computer scan for certain words and then supply you an ad, just like it does on sites (such as Mac sites getting Mac ads). I just don't see the problem with this.

I am looking forward to playing with it though. See if my wife and I can email each other enough, and keep including words such as "kangaroo" "alien" and "suppertime".

Maybe Google has kangaroos for sale! We'll see... :D

[BornAgainMac]

Those stats have to be lower than they really are because so many Mac users also use PCs too.

[MrMacMan]

Those stats have to be lower than they really are because so many Mac users also use PCs too.
And many Pc users use Macs too... sooo. :rolleyes:

[laserbeahm]

That's it, I'm going to do searches on Google just for the heck of it to skew their results.

[gekko513]

The Mac stats are down to 3% again :(

[MacFan26]

The Mac stats are down to 3% again :(

sorry, but where is it that you're finding that?

[gekko513]

sorry, but where is it that you're finding that?
Google Zeitgeist (http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html)

[MacFan26]

Google Zeitgeist (http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html)

thanks :D