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The report is based on analysis of statistics for over 50 million visitors to morethan 265,000 websites from January through September 2006.
"Every browser and even browser versions are different to some extent in the waythey read the HTML-code of a web page and execute scripts. The HitLens report onbrowser usage provides answers to very important questions webmasters are asking,such as "Do I really need to create a website that satisfies the specifics for everybrowser? The information in the WebCEO report can be used to narrow down the numberof browsers and versions to support.  It will help you to create a reallyvisitor-friendly website and avoid the high expenses of unnecessary code programmingand costly web design," says Serge Bondar, a WebCEO analyst.
The IEBlog mentions that Internet Explorer 7 will soon be available via AutomaticUpdates. The new version of IE is rapidly gaining popularity and a larger marketshare. The analysis performed by WebCEO shows that the number of visitors usingInternet Explorer 7 has grown about a hundred fold from January (when thebeta-preview of Internet Explorer 7 was offered) through September of this year. Thenumber of visitors using IE 7.0 grew  from 0.03% in January to 2.27% in September( Visitors with IE7Â' to  All visitorsÂ' ratio).
Checking whether a site is compatible with the newest version of the most popularbrowser is an obvious task. Problems may arise because some websites donÂ't recognizethe user agent string for Internet Explorer 7 or have layout problems due to changesin CSS processing (the IE Team have removed many known CSS processing bugs in IE 6and earlier versions. In addition, IE 7 supports CSS 2.1). These innovations areexplained by MicrosoftÂ's desire to move closer to the standards provided by W3C(World Wide Web Consortium) and to offer enhanced security to their users.
Webmasters need to know that websites with non-standard URLs are unlikely to open inInternet Explorer 7. To ensure that all URLs are understood correctly by IE 7 andother browsers and can be easily followed by visitors, webmasters must use standardURLs.
A standardized approach to graphics support is applied in Internet Explorer 7 (forexample, the non-standard Dynsrc attribute to the tag is no longer supportedin IE 7.0). Testing of graphic objects with the new browser version is highlyrecommended.
The changes by Microsoft may cause some inconvenience to webmasters and force themto check the compatibility of their websites with Internet Explorer 7. But oneshould not forget that these changes will benefit all parties. Website visitors willhave better security, improved privacy protection and advanced functionality.Webmasters also will need to worry less about the compatibility of their sites withdifferent browsers.
About HitLens by Web CEOHitLens by WebCEO is a real-time visitor tracking system. For more information aboutHitLens, visit http://www.web-ceo-traffic-ana lyzer.com.
About Web CEO, LTD WebCEO, LTD is the developer of WebCEO, the leading software program, which includes12 powerful tools for search engine marketing, and web traffic analysis. For moreinformation, please visit the website: http://www.webceo.com.
Web CEO, LTDP: +38.055.232.53.71 (Int'l)P: 866-7-WEBCEO (US toll-free)F: +1.206.339.56.58E-mail: support@webceo.com
