Great web sites never die-- they just slip into fourth place. If you're the type of person who follows every nugget of info on the goings and comings of Apple, no matter how trivial, you're probably aware that Apple.com has been consistently hitting the top spot in PC Data's weekly stats measuring traffic to computer manufacturer web sites. For a solid month now, Apple's been ranked number one, ahead of such heavy hitters as Compaq, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard. What makes this feat all the more amazing is the fact that PC Data suffers from the affliction of Wintel Tunnel Vision so prevalent in the industry, and is therefore only tracking the traffic of Windows users. Think about that for a second; for the past month, more Windows users have visited Apple's site than Compaq's. Here's hoping that Steve rewarded Apple's web team by popping for a few extra stock options and Tofutti Cuties all around.

But alas, all good things have endings. According to The Mac Observer, this week Apple took a spill-- tumbling three slots to land at number four. While that may not sound all that terrible, especially since we're only talking about Windows traffic here, keep in mind that this is an Olympic year. Third place at least gets you a bronze, but fourth? Well, let's just say that not many fourth-place contestants get their picture on the Wheaties box. Which means that, even if Steve rewarded Team Apple.com with shares of AAPL and vegan frozen treats last week, his fiercely competitive and mercurial nature probably has him brandishing the cat-o'-nine-tails right now. Especially for letting the site's traffic slip beneath Dell's. (You can bet that Mike Dell's dancing a little jig right about now.)

After flogging his web department, Steve can at least take solace in the good news following Apple.com's decline in the ratings. For one thing, at least traffic to his site is still beating out the likes of Gateway, IBM, and Intel. For another, the actual volume of traffic to Apple's site has barely dipped at all; it's just that traffic to the sites in the top three spots increased a whole lot. And lastly, there's always next week for Apple to claw its way back up the charts. The Mac Observer assumes that most of Apple's Wintel-based traffic is due to its QuickTime movie trailers, which sounds pretty reasonable to us. So we figure that if Steve really wants to pump up his web traffic, it's time for Apple to acknowledge the fact that porn makes the web go 'round. The Charlie's Angels trailer may be cute, but imagine the stats if Apple were to post previews to major "adult entertainment" titles as well. Of course, then Apple's own site would fall off of the KidSafe list of "approved" sites, but hey, it's a small price to pay for the smiting of one's enemies.