Comments on: Netcraft Web Server Survey? Or should I say Domain Parking Survey?

By: imr

imr — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 22:14:17 +0000

So here’s another question. How many ‘”non-parked active real websites” are there.

Is Netcraft properly discounting wildcard domains as it describes in its methodology:

http://news.netcraft.com/active-sites.html

If not, then it is overcounting millions of domains.

Does Netcraft correctly recognize all real and active blogs that are at the same main domain? If not, it is undercounting by tens of millions.

Netcraft may be the counting authority but I am really confused on what is really counted.

All I wanted to know is how many distinct active websites are there?

As it turns out – not a simple question.

By: - Marius -

- Marius - — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:31:48 +0000

Even if this post is more than 3 years old, I still think my opinion described in the original content is the correct one. Netcraft results are just misleading and not showing the real situation… Who cares on how many domains you have parked? and if they are iss or apache?

By: junkaTutti

junkaTutti — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:07:00 +0000

I’m not seriously suggesting Microsoft is paying off Netcraft to produce positive survey results (although this is certainly a standard operating procedure for Microsoft). But something is odd, if not rotten, in the state of Netcraft. I have often cited Netcraft web server surveys as evidence that open source beats closed source. The Netcraft surveys almost always showed Apache leading Microsoft IIS by a wide margin, and showed Apache growing as Microsoft IIS market share was shrinking. Lately, however, Netcraft began to claim that Apache market share has been shrinking rapidly while Microsoft IIS has been gaining the market share lost by Apache. Netcraft even proposed that, “Microsoft’s recent gains raise the prospect that Windows may soon challenge Apache’s leadership position.” Microsoft IIS may displace Apache as the most-used web server? Could this really be true, or is this reporting from the Bizarro world? And does anyone else find the wording rather odd? “Windows” may challenge Apache? Huh?

If, as counterintuitive as it may seem and so contrary to “data by word-of-mouth”, Microsoft IIS is actually challenging Apache in terms of market share, then so be it. But how does one explain why other web surveys do not detect this remarkable shift?

Here is the Netcraft survey and here is a Security Space survey. While Netcraft says Apache represents 51% market share and rapidly shrinking, Security Space puts Apache at 74% and growing! Netcraft says Microsoft IIS has 34% market share and is rapidly growing, Security Space pegs Microsoft IIS at 20% market share, as it continues to shrink.

Why the vast discrepancy? Does one or the other survey use a misleading polling technique (sites vs. domains vs. servers)? And which survey is misleading? Is Netcraft guilty of voodoo economics (perhaps we should start calling it Witchcraft)? Or is Security Space getting it wrong? I believe common sense favors Security Space, but what do you think?

By: The Open Sourcerer » Microsoft’s IIS vs. Apache: is Apache really in decline?

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:54:18 +0000

[...] rather more stringent about what it thinks is a valid web site and what isn’t. And as we have seen before, when large registrars are paid to switch millions of parked domains from Apache to IIS, the [...]

By: Jose

Jose — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:18:27 +0000

All of these stats are cutish, but what really matters is bang for buck and netcraft doesn’t come close to measuring that.

By: - Marius -

- Marius - — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 12:00:47 +0000

Jon,

Thanks for your comment.
You are right… I was under the impression that everyone has seen the Netcraft survey referred in so many places, so I thought it was pointless to mention them. Some places where I have seen it referred like that, in no particular order: slashdot.org, osnews.com, newsforge.com, linuxtoday.com, serverwatch.com, etc. Just run a Google search on it and you will find many sites that refer to it…

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 08:32:48 +0000

The active sites stats *is* published with the main stats. It just depends on who is reporting the data. For example, you did not mention it in your blog.

By: Ron

Ron — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 13:02:22 +0000

We did a little research about GoDaddy.. They seem to be tied in and owned by WildWestDomains, which is a very large Hosting Company. It seems that the sites are managed by GoDaddy but actually reside on Wild West. Now we only did limited research, but Wild West has many resellers and I believe GoDaddy is just 1 of them. Interesting statistics from Netcraft and it seems a little strange. So if you read the numbers about what Apache lost , 1.4 million, because of GoDaddy, that is actually a 2.8 million swing. If you take the 1.4 million they lost from the total, Apache still picked up a number of sites.

By: steve

steve — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 07:27:52 +0000

It’s easy to guess what has been happening here. Imagine a large company with a less popular commercial product wanting to improve its standing in comparison to the better free product, in the Netcraft statistics. It can’t improve its real standing so easily, but it looks at how the numbers are put together and figures out how to “game” them. It uses its vast wealth to influence things that are not really meaningful but which make its numbers look better.

By: DW

DW — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 22:27:19 +0000

I wouldn’t hold my breath that Netcraft is going to change.

http://www.opensourceparking.com/