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0 pointsFootballMuse12y ago0 comments

It is very important for accuracy. Otherwise there wouldn't be a consistent bias between the two. Uniques vs page views doesn't account the large differences. As you said, independent random sampling would certainly result no significant difference, but neither Net Applications' nor Stat Counter's samples are random. Also, their samples are mostly consistent. When there vast differences between different countries, site topic, and market, sample size is very important.

To your other point, election statistics is much more delicate than you make it out to be. They are also not truly random samples, but they are different for each poll--which helps. They also weight the results by location and expected turn out which is a whole different set of assumptions. If surveying the first 1000 people to answer their phone with consent and using the raw numbers was enough, then there wouldn't be any significant differences in the polls.

0 pointsFootballMuse12y ago0 comments

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5 comments · 2 top-level

cpleppert12y ago· 3 in thread

>>neither Net Applications' nor Stat Counter's samples are random.

Then they have no statistical relevance. None. You can't make up for not having a random sample by having more results.

>>They are also not truly random samples, but they are different for each poll--which helps.

They are very close to random samples, which can be proved statistically after an election.

FootballMuseOP12y ago

A population is a population and a 1% sampling has much less meaning than a 99% sampling, whether or not it is random. A larger sample always has more statistical relevance/confidence.

vidarh12y ago

GeneralMayhem pointed out that this is flat out wrong. Here's an example to demonstrate it:

Consider a population where 99% of users use IE, and 1% of users use Chrome.

From that population you can draw a biased sample consisting of the 99% IE users and conclude that there are no Chrome users at all.

Or you could draw a random sample of 1% of the population, and assuming that 1% adds up to enough people, your chances of drawing a random sample that did not include a reasonable number of Chrome users too would be extremely low.

So depending on methods used, even a 99% sample may be entirely meaningless when compared to a 1% sample.

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GeneralMayhem12y ago

That is mathematically false. Simply having more people does not make a survey better without taking into account how the sample was chosen.

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azakai12y ago

> It is very important for accuracy. Otherwise there wouldn't be a consistent bias between the two.

As mentioned above, they measure different things - page views vs. unique users. That is, usage vs users. There is no reason to expect them to be identical.

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