Correction: The Web has now more than 2 billion pages!

[2007: Click here for updated information on the size of the Web.].

July 2000

The Word Wide Web is growing continuously, and it will probably never be possible to measure its exact size. For some time now, websites like Pandia has told you that the Web is probably some 1 billion pages large.

Some of you probably got a hunch something was wrong with this number when the Google search engine reported that it had mapped more than 1 billion pages.

Cyveillance, a Washington, D.C.-area Internet company, has announced the release of its study, "Sizing the Internet," which reveals that 2.1 billion unique, publicly available pages exist on the Internet.

The study also found that the Internet is growing at an explosive rate of more than 7 million pages each day, indicating that it will double in size by early 2001. Cyveillance further projects that the Internet's highest rate of growth is still to come.

The good news is that the amount of useful and interesting information probably also will grow. The bad news is that it will get even more difficult to find it. "The needle in the haystack" metaphor is unfortunately becoming more and more relevant.

• Cyveillance press release
• ResearchBuzz on the study

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