Section 2.3. Gathering Usage Statistics

2.3. Gathering Usage Statistics

Web developers pay attention to the breakdown of browser usage, for the Web at large and more relevantly for their specific sites, because it directly affects the way they create their pages. There are several methods for tracking browser usage: free general statistics listings, log analysis tools that you run on your own server, and professional statistics services.

2.3.1. Global Browser Statistics

If you are interested in a general breakdown of overall browser usage, there are a number of web sites that provide listings for free. They also offer usage statistics on other useful criteria such as screen resolution and various web technologies.

The Counter (www.thecounter.com/stats) bases its global statistics on millions of visitors using thousands of web sites registered with their service. This is an easy (and free) way to get a good general overview of browser usage.

Another useful resource for browser information, as well as for tutorials on a number of web topics, is the W3 Schools site (www.w3schools.com/browsers). Their statistics seem skewed toward the development and technically savvy community, as evidenced by the fact that the Firefox browser makes up nearly 20% of all usage, compared with only 8% at the more general Counter.com as of this writing (September 2005).

2.3.2. Server Log Analysis

The most meaningful statistics are those culled from your own site's usage. There are software tools designed just for this purpose, all of which work basically the same way.

When a browser accesses files from a server, it leaves a record of that transaction on the server, including a little data about itself: specifically, its version and the platform it is running on. This information is known as the user agent string , and it is used by analysis software to generate statistics about the browser usage for a site. A typical user agent string might look like this:

 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98) 

There are dozens of log analysis tools available at a wide variety of costs. Many hosting companies include some level of server statistics as part of their hosting packages. You may also install special statistics software for better reporting. A web search for "web statistics analysis" will turn up many companies offering statistics analysis.

Another option is to sign up with a service such as The Counter (mentioned earlier) that puts a counter on your web page and provides usage stats in exchange for ad placement on your page.

The Mozilla Legacy

Today, we know Mozilla as the foundation that guides the development of the open source Mozilla software. So it may be confusing to see Mozilla at the beginning of a user agent string for Internet Explorer, as shown in the earlier example.

The Mozilla identifier at the beginning of a typical user agent string is an interesting artifact from the earliest days of the Browser Wars . Netscape first released its browser under the codename Mozilla (a shorthand combination of Mosaic killer and Godzilla). Mozilla, for its time, was a fairly turbo-powered browser, so webmasters began targeting their content to it specifically.

When competing browsers (most significantly, Microsoft Internet Explorer) began featuring similar capabilities, they didn't want to be left out of the targeting action, so they put the word "Mozilla" in their user agent identification as well. Eventually, everyone was doing it, so the only way to truly identify the browser version was to include it in parentheses (such as MSIE 5.5 in the previous example).

The name Mozilla stuck with the Netscape browser through its glory days and continued to its release as open source software. For more information on the Mozilla Foundation, see www.mozilla.org.

2.3.3. Targeted Statistics Consulting

If you want fairly accurate browser usage statistics, but your own site isn't up and running yet, you may hire the services of a user trends consultant to analyze usage on similar sites or within a specific business sector. A place to start is the Web Analytics Association (www.webanalyticsassociation.org), which offers a listing of members who provide usage trend reports.