According to Chitika, an Internet advertising network, usage of OS X Yosemite spiked by more than double after Apple launched the public beta of the OS last Thursday.

Chitika’s data indicates that pre-beta Yosemite-based Internet traffic rose from between 0.2 percent and 0.3 percent of all OS X-related activity, to roughly 0.62 percent of OS X traffic on July 25. That number rose to nearly 0.7 percent by the next day, but curiously dropped back down to the 0.62 percent neighborhood yesterday. It’s worth noting, however, that the numbers are only representative of U.S. and Canadian-based traffic.

It’s not at all surprising that Yosemite’s usage numbers rose after Apple launched the public beta last week. After all, applying for beta access didn’t cost users any money. Plus, OS X no doubt wanted to test drive some of the new features enabled in the beta, which include a new notifications center, Mail Markup, the ability to send texts and make phone calls, and a revamped version of Spotlight.

It’s worth noting that Apple made the OS X Yosemite beta available to the first 1 million people who signed up for the program. This means that usage would likely be even higher if the beta was open to an unlimited amount of people. Also, in all liklihood, not all eligible beta testers have downloaded the OS yet, so it’s possible that the usage numbers noted by Chitika might rise even higher.

It’ll be interesting to see whether Chitika releases updated statistics from here on out, and what those numbers will indicate if and when Chitika publishes more Yosemite beta usage reports.