Google's Mac Stats Up

[MacRumors]

The Mac platform has made a small step forward in Google's February 2004 Zeitgeist. 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.

Of further interest, "ipod" was the 9th most popular search term in January 2004. 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

 

[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

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

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]

Heads up...

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?

https://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]

When would Google separate Safari stats from "other?"

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.