The size of the internet

This weekend, one of my friends asked me how big the internet is. So just to make sure that I know these facts, I did some research that I would like to share with you.

Everyone is in agreement that the internet is humongous. According to Netcraft, a company based in Bath, England, in September it received responses from 135 166 473 domain names. In layman’s terms, this means that there are 135-million website names registered in the world. But not all of these domains have web pages linked to these domains. There are less than 68-million domains that you can actually visit on the internet.

This month there was a record number of 7,2-million new domain names registered and this has been the largest growth in the number of sites recorded by the survey.

Behind every domain name there are web pages. According to Worldwidewebsize.com, a website that gives a daily estimated size of the internet, there are 22,71-billion pages. The estimated minimal size of the indexed world wide web is based on the estimations of the number of pages indexed by Google, Windows Live Search (MSN Search), Yahoo! Search and Ask.

If we do a rough calculation, it seems that the average website size is 324 pages.

But the size of the internet is not only determined by the number of domains or web pages, but also by the number of internet users. Currently only 17,8% of the world’s population have access to the internet. With a world population of approximately 6,5-billion, the total number of internet users is 1,1-billion. If you are looking for more detail about internet users visit, www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

Well, now you know.