There is something that confuses me about the existing number of websites today.
If we could say that the size of the World Wide Web is measured by the number of websites, then the conclusion would be that the World Wide Web is on the rise again. The total number of websites by early 2020 is just over 1.72 billion websites.
When I said on the rise again, that implies that something happened at some point earlier. Well, in 2018 we have seen a decline in the number for around 0.16 billion compared to the year before.
ONLY AROUND 200 MILLION WEBSITE ARE ACTIVE
The year 2018 ended with 1.6 billion websites. The highest number of websites was actually reached just a year before, a total of 1.76 billion websites.
You will find more infographics at Statista
The number of websites or number of domains?
Now, the confusing part someone should clarify. According to the website InternetLiveStats.com (many others have just blindly copy-pasted that information), by the website they actually mean unique hostname or a name which can be resolved, using a name server, into an IP Address. What’s less obvious to an average internet user is that the hostname is actually a domain name like google.com or facebook.com.
A staggering number of websites (75%) are just parked domains. Domain names are pretty much cheap. Businesses and individuals invest in buying domain names for two reasons. Buying for preventing other businesses or individuals to get domain names related to their services and products. Buying for reselling.
Of the 25% supposedly active websites, 62.1% are powered by the WordPress content management system.
Finally, I realize, we all should actually talk-write about the number of domains. When a domain name is parked, the website does not exist, there is only a dummy web page. What is displayed on such a page varies from registrar to registrar, they either place advertisements or link to their own website.
