A resource to help inform targeting platforms for site design
I was recently recommended NetMarketShare by @JamesGurd it was a new source to me, so I thought it would share since it’s sometimes useful to have data on the most popular platforms like browsers and screen resolutions to benchmark against. Of course, a business will know how its own users access the site through its own analytics, but it’s still useful to get an idea of trends of technologies you intend to invest more on in future.
Previously global analytics services like Hitbox (remember that?) used to be good sources which published their results, but I don’t know of any similar commercial analytics services that still do. Do you?
Methodology and data sources
You have to be really careful with these sources to make sure that they are representative in terms of types of sites or your numbers can get skewed by the type of audiences for a site. For example, I’ve previously used W3 Schools Browser Statistics which has a great compilation, but the audience is would-be designers so tends to include early adopters.
NetMarketshare is at least open about its (sources - see base of page). It says the data is compiled from approximately 160 million visitors per month, so it’s small. Tiny really since Statcounter has data from 15 billion page views per month, but it’s free so mainly used on smaller sites. Additional estimates about the website population:
- 76% participate in pay per click programs to drive traffic to their sites.
- 43% are commerce sites
- 18% are corporate sites
- 10% are content sites
- 29% classify themselves as other (includes gov, org, search engine marketers etc..)