The Internet is 183 million big, and that is official

happygeek 0 323 Views

Ever wondered just how big the Internet is? I know I have, and during my search for an answer I have discovered along the way how fast it is and how much spam it produces. But now I know how big it is as well.

When it comes to size, however, then you have to consider the metric upon which the measurement is based. Is it the number of websites, or maybe the number of people connected to it? How about the number of domain name registrations, which actually seems like a pretty good way of seeing the Internet in terms of capaciousness. Which is a bit of luck, because VeriSign have just told me that the Internet is 183 million big.

That is the number that came from the first quarter Domain Name Industry Brief for 2009 which also revealed, no great surprise, that .com remains the most popular of Top Level Domains followed by .cn, .de and .net of which the Germans hitting the third spot was probably the biggest surprise of the lot.

This first quarter 2009 figure represents a three percent increase over the fourth quarter of 2008 and a 12 percent increase over the same quarter from last year. Looking at the figures in a little more depth, Country Code TLDs (ccTLDs) rose to 74.1 million domain names during the first quarter, a four percent jump from the previous quarter and an 18 percent increase year over year.

There were, I am told, an average of 2.4 million new .com and .net registrations added each month of the first quarter with the overall base of .com and .net domain names growing to 92.4 million domain names. That's a two percent increase from Q4 2008, a jump of nine percent over the same quarter of the previous year, and an increase of 34 percent over the first quarter of 2007.

Dani AI

Generated

As reported, the "183 million" number comes from VeriSign’s Q1 2009 Domain Name Industry Brief — it’s the count of registered domain names across all TLDs at the end of March 2009. That metric measures registrations, not distinct websites or users, so the headline is accurate for registry size but limited in what it actually describes. (verisign.com)

As guessed, registrations are a different metric from active content. Registrations include parking, redirects, investor portfolios and duplicate names for the same site. Verisign’s reporting around that period noted a substantial share of .com/.net names were single‑page or had no associated content, while Netcraft’s Web Server Survey showed tens of millions of active hostnames/servers (for example, Apache alone served on the order of 39 million active sites in mid‑2009). In short, 183M registrations ≠ 183M content-rich websites. (en.wikipedia.org)

Practical takeaway: pick the metric that answers the question you mean to ask. Use VeriSign/DNIB for registry size and DNS query volume, Netcraft for active-site and hosting trends, RIR/IANA stats for IP-address scope, and ITU/Internet population reports for user counts — and always pair the number with the exact metric and date (for example, "183M registered domains, Q1 2009"). That keeps comparisons honest and avoids confusing registrations with active sites or users. (domainnamewire.com)

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deathlemon 0 Newbie Poster

ow, so there measuring how big is the www by the number of domain names.

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