Chitika did some sleuthing of its search engine traffic and uncovered a data point regarding the jihad between and Linux and Windows.
The ad network compared the operating system and search engine data for more than 163 million searches and discovered 94.61 percent of all Linux search traffic was from Google, compared with 78.54 percent of Windows user searches.
Only 8 percent of Windows users searched Bing, with a mere .77 percent of Linux searches came through Bing. Here’s the Chitika chart:
Chitika Search graph.png
And here is Chitika’s raw data:
Chitika os vs. windows.png
Even woeful Ask.com outdoes Bing for Linux users, with a 1.07 percent share.
What’s surprising about this? The 8 percent of Windows users searching Bing is pretty much on par with Bing’s search engine market share overall (8.9 percent, according to the latest from comScore), but would anyone really expect Linux users to be searching Bing?
Users choose Linux because they flat-out hate Microsoft, are tired of the whole Microsoft Windows experience, or they hate Microsoft because they are tired of the whole Windows experience.
That holy war is hardly over. In fact, the stakes are being raised, with Linux shipping in more netbooks (though Windows is still winning here) and becoming a greater part of the mobile OS ecosystem.
So I’m inclined to believe the Bing traffic from Linux users (9,044 out of more than 163 million!) are accidental searches, or searches executed to test Bing out of curiosity.
And why not? It’s not often a search engine with a $100 million marketing campaign emerges to test its mettle against the best.
Linux users probably want to see what they’re missing in Bing, but I expect them to stick with Google.
Prove me wrong. Do you own and/or use a Linux-based computer and use Bing as you primary search engine? I would love to hear from you about why you like Linux over Windows and like Bing over Google.