Linux Wins the Latest Google Count
May 25th, 2002 by Doc Searls in
Yesterday I was doing some research on Google and thought I'd compare the number of results for different words and phrases. Here are a few of the surprising results:
Linux, 47,100,000
Windows, 43,800,000
UNIX, 12,200,000
Open Source, 2,740,000
Free software, 1,760,000
That's how far I got before the kid came home from school. But when I picked the job back up this morning, the results had changed:
Linux, 51,700,000
Windows, 46,700,000
UNIX, 13,000,000
Open Source, 2,810,000
Free software, 1,780,000
That piqued my curiosity, so I began searching for a whole pile of words. The results might not be meaningful, but they're still interesting:
US, 244,000,000
site, 200,000,000
UK, 75,300,000
sex, 82,600,000
love, 49,800,000
Canada, 35,100,000
Microsoft, 29,200,000
Japan, 26,800,000
HP (including Hewlett Packard), 25,560,000
death, 24,800,000
fun, 24,200,000
Australia, 22,300,000
China, 21,900,000
Germany, 18,500,000
England, 16,400,000
IBM, 16,300,000
Russia, 10,800,000
GNU, 9,040,000
Debian, 9,620,000
Apple, 8,940,000
fear, 8,800,000
drugs, 8,170,000
coffee, 7,830,000
commands, 7,370,000
Finland, 6,920,000
Solaris, 6,540,000
Compaq, 5,460,000
chicken, 5,100,000
smoke, 4,840,000
GNOME, 4,810,000
United States, 4,610,000
KDE, 4,540,000
OS X, 4,060,000
BSD, 3,190,000
SourceForge, 3,800,000
SuSE, 3,660,000
beef, 3,000,000
Mandrake, 2,840,000
foo, 2,180,000
girlfriend, 2,150,000
Red Hat, 2,140,000
Slashdot, 2,080,000
VA Software (including VA Linux), 2,043,000
Bill Clinton, 1,670,000
penguin, 1,510,000
boyfriend, 1,450,000
George W. Bush, 1,260,000
MacOS, 1,150,000
Slackware, 1,050,000
rock & (also and) roll, 894,000
Caldera, 787,000
Al Gore, 644,000
Linus Torvalds, 638,000
VA Linux, 553,000
melon, 525,000
Albert Einstein, 510,000
LinuxPPC, 294,000
Turbolinux, 250,000
Okay, that's enough. I have real work to do.
Speaking of which, I'm always looking for numbers to stick in the next LJ Index and elsewhere in the UpFront section of Linux Journal. If you have any you want to send along or point us to, please do.
Doc Searls is senior editor of Linux Journal.
Doc Searls is Senior Editor of Linux Journal
Special Magazine Offer -- Free Gift with Subscription
Receive a free digital copy of Linux Journal's System Administration Special Edition as well as instant online access to current and past issues. CLICK HERE for offer
Linux Journal: delivering readers the advice and inspiration they need to get the most out of their Linux systems since 1994.
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Facebook
Post to TwitterSubscribe now!
The Latest
Newsletter
Tech Tip Videos
Recently Popular
From the Magazine
December 2009, #188
If last month's Infrastrucuture issue was too "big" for you then try on this month's Embedded issue. Find out how to use Player for programming mobile robots, build a humidity controller for your root cellar, find out how to reduce the boot time of your embedded system, and if you're new to embedded systems find out the basics that go into one. You can also read about the Beagle Board, the Mesh Potato and a spate of other interestingly named items. And along with our regular columns don't miss our new monthly column: Economy Size Geek.
Hey dammit you forgot ...
On July 23rd, 2002 Anonymous says:
... some incredibly useless figures:
0. Sweden (googlesearch): 9,890,000
1. Current version of "The Great Linux Client Thread" on the NeverWinterNights forums(1): 6
2. Number of posts on each page of above thread: 15
3. Average Number of pages in each version of above thread(2): ~27
4. Current number of viewings of thread v6.0: 2776
5. Current number of pages in v6.0: 8
6. Average number of spinoff threads per version: 5
(1): http://nwn.bioware.com/forums/viewforum.html?forum=42
(2): Each thread is locked by a moderator when it gets too long, now the posters has managed to get a "sticky" thread.
P.S. something tells me that Linux gamers are pretty vocal. D.S.
Re: Linux Wins the Latest Google Count
On June 6th, 2002 Anonymous says:
This is even more interesting if you consider the fact that Windows is a generic term with more than one meaning, whereas Linux is not. So how many of those Google searches are actually pointing to construction supply businesses instead of Microsoft products? :-)
Interesting Google Numbers!
On May 29th, 2002 Anonymous says:
Something interesting to note, on google searching for just Linux gives us the Linux Journal Website at the 5th place (or 6th, depending on your point of view), ahead of quite a few Linux Distros.
Another piece of statistics, on google, people search for:
Linux around 588,100 times a day.
Microsoft: 238,700
Windows: 776,100 (Sorry Doc. Searls!)
Unix: 119,800
Open Source: 13,800
Linux Journal: 400
Linux Magazine: 200
Linux Sex: 0
Linux Security: 2200
Redht: 44700
Debian: 22400
Caldera: 2800
Suse: 15300
Mandrake: 16000
GNOME: 17500
KDE: 17100
BSD: 7700
OS X: 7200
AIX: 15100
Solaris: 80100
Slashdot: 2200
Tux: 3500
Linus Torvalds:200, Linus: 3500, Torvalds: 400
Bill Gates: 9700
Stallman: 0
ESR: 700, Eric Raymond: 600
Alan Cox: 700
Kernel: 37900
Vim: 3900
emacs: 19100
Apache: 61400
IIS: 30500
Sendmail: 26500
qmail: 8100
gimp: 7900
netscape: 106800
konqueror: 900
opera: 55100 (might be a musical opera too!)
galeon: 1100
mozilla: 8600
mpg123: 1100
xmms: 2400
glibc: 2600
rpm: 41400
yast: 200
pine: 16200
elm: 3300
mutt:2900
ibm: 89900
hp: 122600
compaq: 56400
oracle: 132000
intel: 58300
amd: 36200
gcc: 19100
c++: 190800
java: 478200
perl: 118400
j2ee: 118400
ejb: 15400
python: 28500
corba: 13600
.Net: 397200
Are there any important keywords I missed? Nothing should be concluded from these figures except that nothing can be concluded from them. :))
Sumit Dhar
SLMsoft.com
Figures regarding how many times different terms are searched on
On May 29th, 2002 Anonymous says:
Something interesting to note, on google searching for just Linux gives us the Linux Journal Website at the 5th place (or 6th, depending on your point of view), ahead of quite a few Linux Distros.
Another piece of statistics, on google, people search for:
Linux around 588,100 times a day.
Microsoft: 238,700
Windows: 776,100 (Sorry Doc. Searls!)
Unix: 119,800
Open Source: 13,800
Linux Journal: 400
Linux Magazine: 200
Linux Sex: 0
Linux Security: 2200
Redht: 44700
Debian: 22400
Caldera: 2800
Suse: 15300
Mandrake: 16000
GNOME: 17500
KDE: 17100
BSD: 7700
OS X: 7200
AIX: 15100
Solaris: 80100
Slashdot: 2200
Tux: 3500
Linus Torvalds:200, Linus: 3500, Torvalds: 400
Bill Gates: 9700
Stallman: 0
ESR: 700, Eric Raymond: 600
Alan Cox: 700
Kernel: 37900
Vim: 3900
emacs: 19100
Apache: 61400
IIS: 30500
Sendmail: 26500
qmail: 8100
gimp: 7900
netscape: 106800
konqueror: 900
opera: 55100 (might be a musical opera too!)
galeon: 1100
mozilla: 8600
mpg123: 1100
xmms: 2400
glibc: 2600
rpm: 41400
yast: 200
pine: 16200
elm: 3300
mutt:2900
ibm: 89900
hp: 122600
compaq: 56400
oracle: 132000
intel: 58300
amd: 36200
gcc: 19100
c++: 190800
java: 478200
perl: 118400
j2ee: 118400
ejb: 15400
python: 28500
corba: 13600
.Net: 397200
Are there any important keywords I missed? Nothing should be concluded from these figures except that nothing can be concluded from them. :))
Sumit Dhar
SLMsoft.com
Linux Losses @ MSN
On May 29th, 2002 Anonymous says:
Hi,
Just thought I'd check out to see what www.msn.com has to say about all this hoopla.
windows 1508
linux 504
Sorry guys, guess we'll still have to wait...
Re: Linux Wins the Latest Google Count
On May 29th, 2002 Anonymous says:
ixquick.com (i believe is superior to google) gives
linux 49,800,005
windows 45,600,005
marmalade 229,003
Re: Linux Wins the Latest Google Count
On May 27th, 2002 Anonymous says:
"linux journal" - 119,000
"linux magazine" - 84,000
A nude woman, in a bath, holding a bit of your linux...
On May 28th, 2002 Anonymous says:
Sex, sex, sex, we've got to get sex into it somehow...
"linux sex" 328,000
"linux orgasm" 3,820
"linux foreplay" 1,180
So... Google proves that Linux nuts are all insensitive zealots? Simpson's individual penguinettes, anyone? The `now' penguin!
Re: Linux Wins the Latest Google Count
On May 26th, 2002 Anonymous says:
Chicken and smoke are neck and neck. Woo-hoo!! I can hardly wait for next week's results so I'll know what to put my money on when I go to pick up my groceries.
Re: Linux Wins the Latest Google Count
On May 25th, 2002 Anonymous says:
I think there is something to be said for rounding the real total off on google... I mean, the internet is a virtual place, it isn't like the numer no matter how exact would be the same for more than 2 seconds, so who cares about the last three zeros... they are basically insignificant digits I guess... placeholders is all...
Re: Linux Wins the Latest Google Count
On May 25th, 2002 Anonymous says:
How odd. Every one of your search terms ends in at least three zeros.
That's quite unlikely.
Re: Linux Wins the Latest Google Count
On May 31st, 2002 Anonymous says:
Google rounds off gigantic results. Like it'll say 'Results 1-10 of about 300,000'.
Post new comment