On 2015-01-21, consused <consused@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
> flymail;2690427 Wrote:
> How does that actually work, and whose IP address is being counted on
> for example a google search that just produces a list of possible
> website references that includes a reference to DistroWatch?
To be honest I don’t know. But if DistroWatch is consistently ranking Mint way-above Ubuntu, then clearly the underlying
counting mechanism is misleading since every other poll of GNU/Linux distributions puts Ubuntu way-ahead.
On Wed, 21 Jan 2015 09:52:59 +0000, flymail wrote:
> In the LAS, they claim that most of DistroWatch’s counts are indirect
> `hits’ made by web searches in which users ended up never actually
> visiting DistroWatch.
I also wonder how this actually would work - that’s contrary to what
Distrowatch says they do.
On 2015-01-21, Jim Henderson <hendersj@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Jan 2015 09:52:59 +0000, flymail wrote:
> I also wonder how this actually would work - that’s contrary to what
> Distrowatch says they do.
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding. The Jupiter Broadcasting Linux Action Show episode with the critique of DistroWatch
rankings is at…
Nor do I know for sure. DW claims to log “all visits” to a distro page, and “Only one hit per IP address per day is counted”. So for a significant inflation per distro, Google itself would need to hit the page daily from multiple IP addresses. An individual user would also have to hit the page daily from multiple addreses to inflate the count.
BTW I tend to regard Mint and Ubuntu as if in one rank wrt popularity, i.e. jointly and separately more popularly known than any other single distro. I don’t think I’ve seen the other polls you refer to. However they both enjoy the benefit of being at the top of a list used globally by researchers and potential linux users. It’s almost self-promoting wrt getting more hits.
On Wed, 21 Jan 2015 16:38:02 +0000, flymail wrote:
> On 2015-01-21, Jim Henderson <hendersj@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
>> On Wed, 21 Jan 2015 09:52:59 +0000, flymail wrote:
>> I also wonder how this actually would work - that’s contrary to what
>> Distrowatch says they do.
>
> Perhaps I’m misunderstanding. The Jupiter Broadcasting Linux Action Show
> episode with the critique of DistroWatch rankings is at…
>
> http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/24396/opensuse-12-2-review-las-
s23e06/
>
> …from around 9.00.
Here’s what Distrowatch says about it themselves:
— snip —
The DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics have attracted plenty of
attention and feedback over the years. Originally, each distribution-
specific page was pure HTML with a third-party counter at the bottom to
monitor interest of visitors. In May 2004 the site switched from publicly
viewable third-party counters to internal counters. This was prompted by
a continuous abuse of the counters by a handful of undisciplined
individuals who had confused DistroWatch with a poll station. The
counters are no longer displayed on the individual distributions pages,
but all visits are logged. Only one hit per IP address per day is counted.
The DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics are a light-hearted way of
measuring the popularity of Linux distributions and other free operating
systems among the visitors of this website. They correlate neither to
usage nor to quality and should not be used to measure the market share
of distributions. They simply show the number of times a distribution
page on DistroWatch.com was accessed each day, nothing more.
— snip —
That’s pretty much the definitive answer about what Distrowatch
measures.
SJVN clearly doesn’t understand what Distrowatch measures, especially if
he uses it as “the master Linux desktop tracking site for useful desktop
Linux use data” - because that’s not at all what it tracks or does - by
Distrowatch’s own description of what they measure.
That said, I’ve personally never found SJVN’s reporting on the industry
to be particularly compelling or accurate. (Again, my own personal
opinion; I’m not authorized to speak for anyone else on this matter.)
On Wed, 21 Jan 2015 16:38:02 +0000, flymail wrote:
> On 2015-01-21, Jim Henderson <hendersj@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
>> On Wed, 21 Jan 2015 09:52:59 +0000, flymail wrote:
>> I also wonder how this actually would work - that’s contrary to what
>> Distrowatch says they do.
>
> Perhaps I’m misunderstanding. The Jupiter Broadcasting Linux Action Show
> episode with the critique of DistroWatch rankings is at…
>
> http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/24396/opensuse-12-2-review-las-
s23e06/
>
> …from around 9.00.
Oh, and it was my turn to misunderstand.
So what the guys at Jupiter are saying is that Distrowatch gets traffic
from SEO results that put results at the top of the list.
They’re not talking about something going on in the background that’s
inflating results - they’re talking (I think) about people searching for
a distro and clicking the link for Distrowatch. They’re actually
explaining essentially how SEO pushes more people to Distrowatch’s page.
IOW, they’re explaining how search engines skew the popularity of
Distrowatch pages.
On 2015-01-21, Jim Henderson <hendersj@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
> They’re not talking about something going on in the background that’s
> inflating results - they’re talking (I think) about people searching for
> a distro and clicking the link for Distrowatch. They’re actually
> explaining essentially how SEO pushes more people to Distrowatch’s page.
Ahh I didn’t appreciate that interpretation when watching that LAS episode.
On 2015-01-22, Jim Henderson <hendersj@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
> That said, I’ve personally never found SJVN’s reporting on the industry
> to be particularly compelling or accurate. (Again, my own personal
> opinion; I’m not authorized to speak for anyone else on this matter.)
Well you’d certainly be speaking for myself accurately on this one!
Oh I think he does understand DistroWatch’s methods! At least that’s what the Jupiter guys are saying, they mention the text you quote there as effectively part of his “disclaimer”, and one of them (also a writer) claims to know for sure that SJVN is aware of DW’s ranking limitations. They mention it’s the Publication that calls the tune (my words) or at least its Editor does. That’s fairly typical newspaper Journalism anyway AFAIUI.
A few years ago I tried OpenSUSE and wasn’t impressed. Now I’m totally converted! I installed the latest version 13; very smooth installation with KDE. Then updated & installed third party codecs thanks to tutorial, rebooted - & all works flawlessly! Absolutely awesome! Keep up the good work folks - it really shows!
