Despite brisk Chromebook sales, online usage of Chrome OS hardware on the web still barely registers with those measuring Web traffic.

By many accounts, Chromebooks are flying off store shelves. But wherever they’re landing, they’re doing so without leaving tracks. Online usage of Chrome OS hardware on the web still barely registers with those measuring Web traffic.

There’s little question outside of Microsoft — which insists Chromebooks aren’t real PCs — that the Chrome operating system had a breakout year in 2013. After a slow start in 2011, Chromebooks now account for 21% of notebook computers sold inside the US, consistent with NPD Group. Two in three of the most productive-selling laptops on Amazon in the course of the 2013 holiday season were Chromebooks. Google’s Chromebook hardware partners now include eight of the tip computer makers on the planet.

Chitika, a web based advertising network and Yahoo partner, recently concluded a five-month study of Chrome OS and Linux Web usage growth. The corporate found that the Chrome OS drives 0.2% of desktop Web traffic in North America.

That represents a doubling of Chrome OS traffic in September 2013, when Chitika’s study began. But inside the overall scheme of factors, Chromebook-generated Web traffic remains insignificant. Chrome OS Web traffic is set a 10th of desktop Linux Web traffic in North America.

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Chitika notes that although Linux has always been considered a gap product at the desktop, Google’s marketing efforts point to grand ambitions for Chrome OS. The corporate means that the modest growth of Chrome OS highlights the domestic PC market slowdown.

“[T]his could mean that either those new Chrome OS users don’t collectively browse the internet all that much using their device, or that the Chromebooks/Chromeboxes themselves are usually not collectively getting used at a high rate more often than not,” said Chitika analyst Andrew Waber in an email.

Nontheless, the firm says that Google’s recent decision to collaborate with VMware to present virtualized Windows desktops on Chromebooks should encourage further Chrome OS adoption among businesses.

Judging Chrome OS by use of hardware risks missing the bigger picture. Web usage offers only limited insight into the importance of a market. Apple’s iOS still accounts for more Web usage than Android, however the days when that suggested Android couldn’t complete are gone.

What’s more, Chromebooks are just component to the Google landscape. The Chrome browser really needs to be included, too, since the Chrome operating system doesn’t offer any software that may not also available in Google’s browser.

Perhaps how to measure the success of Chromebooks is to take a look at Microsoft’s reaction. When Chromebooks debuted, Microsoft ignored them. Now they’re being trashed in Microsoft’s marketing. Clearly, Microsoft thinks they matter. In time, Chromebooks will occur more prominently in Web traffic graphs.

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Thomas Claburn was writing about business and technology since 1996, for publications which include New Architect, PC Computing, InformationWeek, Salon, Wired, and Ziff Davis Smart Business. Before that, he worked in film and tv, having earned a not particularly useful … View Full Bio

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