Just How Big Is the Internet?

Google-Sponsored Study Aims to Accurately Calculate the Total Number of Pages Online

by Branford Lyles on September 12, 2011

Of course there are a finite number of pages on the Internet, but no one really knows what that number is. Experts may estimate that figure somewhere around one trillion, but no one really knows for sure. The size of the Internet has doubled every few years, with thousands, if not millions, of new pages added every day. A planned study, however, hopes to change all that.

The World Wide Web Foundation, using a $1 million grant from Google, is planning on creating the World Wide Web Index by early 2012. In an email sent to CNN, the foundation describes the index as “the world’s first multi-dimensional measure of the Web and its impact on people and nations. It will cover a large number of developed and developing countries, allowing for comparisons of trends over time and benchmarking performance across countries.”

The index is scheduled to be released as an annual report.

The biggest question confronting the index, though, is, “How do you measure the Internet?” According to WWW Foundation CEO Steve Bratt, they will use surveys of users as well as request information from Internet service providers, national governments, and search engines like Bing, Yahoo, and Google.

Beyond understanding the exact size and scope of the Internet, the index will also use the information it gathers to understand how the Internet is used in different countries. Social media, for example, has become an extremely important tool for businesses, revolution, riots, crimes, and communication across the globe. The index has said it plans to gauge just how much people use Facebook and its ilk in different countries and for what reasons.

Beyond social media, the index hopes to measure general web usage throughout the world. This will give insight into the types of sites that different cultures visit, and how the Internet is used by different people.

Of course, Bratt is quick to say that the index is not meant to be the ultimate Internet resource. In fact, the International Telecommunications Union already investigates much of the same ground as the WWWI will. Bratt says that the index is meant as supplement, not a replacement for the work that the ITU conducts.

“We want to be really careful about what will happen [because of the Index] because we just don’t know,” he said. “But this will be probably the best opportunity to quantify [the Internet].”

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