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Guess How Many Websites Have Been on the Internet

By - Source: Netcraft

Netcraft has been publishing since February of 2003 and has given us a good indication of who is hosting the most sites and which is the preferred hosting software. Can you guess how many sites are out there?

Netcraft's latest survey revealed 525,998,433 sites in total. However, not all of them are activy; only 172 million are in active use. These numbers compare to 463,000,317 sites and 170 million active sites just two months ago.

If we travel back in time, we find that there were just 35,863,952 in February of 2003 and just 105.2 million in December of 2006. As far as the plain number of sites is concerned, the web has about quintupled in less than five years. For 2011 alone, the Internet has almost doubled the number of its sites as Netcraft reported only 273,301,445 sites in January of this year.

Apache is, by a wide margin, the most popular web hosting software with a share of 65.0 percent. Microsoft IIS follows with 15.5 percent. Nginx has 8.5 percent and Google 3.37 percent.

There are 25 Comments. B
Top Comments
  • 17 Ð
    mavroxur , November 11, 2011 9:50 PM
    That's a lotta boobs
  • 17 Ð
    amk-aka-Phantom , November 11, 2011 9:39 PM
    Wonder how many of those sites are pr0n
  • 13 Ð
    anonymous@guest , November 11, 2011 10:17 PM
    @Theonlydz: It was interesting enough to draw your attention.
Other Comments
  • -7 Ð
    alyoshka , November 11, 2011 9:15 PM
    Is that anywhere close to the total population of the world?
  • 5 Ð
    alyoshka , November 11, 2011 9:17 PM
    Nah!!! I think we'll see a population of sites equal to the actual worlds population within the next 10 years though.
  • 6 Ð
    AidanJC , November 11, 2011 9:26 PM
    I wonder if this is just the surface web websites included in this number.
  • 10 Ð
    digiex , November 11, 2011 9:28 PM
    Quote:
    Is that anywhere close to the total population of the world?


    Recent news says that world population is at 7 billion, that, 7,000,000,000.
  • 17 Ð
    amk-aka-Phantom , November 11, 2011 9:39 PM
    Wonder how many of those sites are pr0n
  • 17 Ð
    mavroxur , November 11, 2011 9:50 PM
    That's a lotta boobs
  • 7 Ð
    mouse24 , November 11, 2011 9:52 PM
    Netcraft's latest survey revealed 525,998,433 sites in total. However, not all of them are activy

    I assume the guy meant "Active" :) 
  • 4 Ð
    dillyflump , November 11, 2011 9:54 PM
    I'd think 100,000 of those sites or registered domains are owned by chinese gold sellers, trying to steal MMORPG accounts.
  • -6 Ð
    theonlydz , November 11, 2011 9:56 PM
    this isn't really that interesting.
  • 13 Ð
    anonymous@guest , November 11, 2011 10:17 PM
    @Theonlydz: It was interesting enough to draw your attention.
  • -1 Ð
    nebun , November 11, 2011 10:25 PM
    amk-aka-PhantomWonder how many of those sites are pr0n

    most likely half of them, lol....who needs porn sites when you can torrent :) 
  • 2 Ð
    zak_mckraken , November 11, 2011 10:44 PM
    Interesting to see that there are less active web sites than there are facebook pages...

    Also, that number obviously do not take the deep web into account.
  • 1 Ð
    anonymous@guest , November 11, 2011 10:57 PM
    I used my lucky # 5 as usual to guess. I was a bit off.
  • 0 Ð
    mayne92 , November 11, 2011 11:53 PM
    Nginx is pretty solid but has a hell of a learning curve...
  • 1 Ð
    afrubin , November 12, 2011 12:05 AM
    nebunmost likely half of them, lol....who needs porn sites when you can torrent


    Who needs to torrent when you can stream instantly imho
  • -2 Ð
    anonymous@guest , November 12, 2011 12:44 AM
    Ya
  • 0 Ð
    anonymous@guest , November 12, 2011 12:50 AM
    "most likely half of them, lol....who needs porn sites when you can torrent"

    Usenet 100Mbps down. No up. SSL. Never hit my cap. Don't understand why people use torrents so much. People getting sued for copyright. I know people constantly getting warning from there IP's. I know one guy pulling his hair out trying to use proxies so he does not get caught. People who think they are slick downloading from work. And the people who think they are in the know for using torrents.
  • 6 Ð
    zak_mckraken , November 12, 2011 1:14 AM
    afrubinWho needs to torrent when you can stream instantly imho

    Who needs to stream when you can just have sex imho
  • 2 Ð
    JOSHSKORN , November 12, 2011 1:50 AM
    mouse24Netcraft's latest survey revealed 525,998,433 sites in total. However, not all of them are activyI assume the guy meant "Active"

    Nah I think they were talking about that yogurt with live cultures. I could be wrong and you could be right.
  • -3 Ð
    viometrix , November 12, 2011 2:09 AM
    i dont care
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