Some Site Statistics
Some time ago, I signed up to Google Analytics, the other night I checked my site’s statistics, and here is what I found:
General Statistics
Browsers
Thats always the most interesting thing, which browsers do your visitors use? here are the stats for this site: So, the majority of this site’s visitors (50.33%) have chosen FireFox, next is Internet Explorer, with only 33.89%. Good, but not good enough. guys, Stop using Internet Explorer! No. 3 is the favorite browser of the mac users, Safari, with 12.13%. Under 2% are Opera, Mozilla, Camino and Konqueror.
Operating Systems
Sadly, windows is still leading this one with 79.07%, Mac is second with 17.11% and weirdly enough, Linux only has 3.82%.
Connection Speed
80.4% have some sort of broadband connection (cable or DSL) 10.47% have dialup (Much more that I thought) and the rest have corporate or ‘unknown’ connections.
Screen Resolutions
The leading resolution, with 40.2% of visitors, is 1024×768. no. 2 is 1280×1024 with 22.76% followed by 1680×1050 (8.47%) and 1280×800 (5.98%). under the 5% mark are 1440×900 (3.49%), 1152×864 (3.16%), 1600×1200 (2.49%), 1280×768 (2.33%), 800×600 (1.99%) and 1280×854 (1.83%).
Outdated Stuff
Another thing that interested me was if there’s still a point in designing for IE 5, using web-safe colors and limiting the designs to 800px.
Screen Resolutions
Less then 2% of this sites visitors have a 800×600 resolution, so while I think that those visitors need to be kept in mind, less important stuff, like a right sidebar, can be put outside the traditional 800 pixel limit.
Older Browsers
Internet Explorer 5 got 0.49% of the Internet Explorer Visitors to this site which are only 36.29% of total visits to this site. Netscape didn’t even register once! so no hassle with outdated browsers and their quirks for me.
Screen Colors
Is using web-safe colors still important? well, not for my site. 90.2% use 32-bit monitors, 5.32% have a 16-bit monitor, and 4.32% use a 24-bit monitor. not even one 8-bit registered. web-safe colors are officially dead.
All the above stats can be found in any old stats tool, the real good stuff in Google Analytics is stuff like what links were clicked and the bounce rates, but I’ll save that stuff for another post.
Sean | April 18, 2006,
That’s very interesting information.
I would have thought 800×600 users would have been much higher.
I agree that people need to stop using Internet Exploder.
Timmargh | April 20, 2006,
I can’t believe how many people do still use IE, even after all the bad press it’s so rightly had.
Andyk | April 22, 2006,
Apple need to release Safari to windows users, then we’ll see a REAL browser revolution
)
As someone that has been working in web design for nearly 7 years I’m glad to see that 800×600 isn’t such a worry now. Only problem is finding stuff to put in wider screen layouts, I much prefer fixed width designs around the 800×600 proportions as I find that long lines are a real pain in the arse to read. Either that or we need to start making the text size bigger instead!
LobsterMan | April 22, 2006,
I’m actually thinking of moving the right navigation bar out of the 800px box (it barely gets clicked anyway, according to google analytics) thus adding a few more pixels to the main content area
kjoker | April 27, 2006,
i just finished cleaning my bro’s computer off the stupid adware that he got through IE. GAWD. I yelled at him to stop using IE and if he doesn’t want to follow my advice…next time he has to clean up the freakin mess. Heh.. going to stop ranting now lol.
Those lost souls can’t get through life without using IE apparently. May they be condemned by all of the spyware and adware out there. :insert evil laugh here: