How Many Websites Are There 2024 (Worldwide)

The World Wide Web has experienced explosive growth since its inception in 1989, evolving from a small research project into a global digital landscape with billions of websites.

In this article, let’s look at the latest stats for websites that will help you learn how far we have come since the World Wide Web’s inception in 1991.

So, without any further ado, let us get started.

Top Picks: How Many Websites Are There?

• There are 1.09 billion websites worldwide, with only 17% (about 192.9 million) active sites as of 2024.
• Approximately 252,000 new websites are created daily, and approximately 175 new websites are created every second, adding to this number. (Siteefy)
• The indexed pages of the World Wide Web contain at least 4.37 billion pages as of November 11, 2024. (Worldwebsize)
• An estimated 10,500 new websites are created every hour (Source: PCWorld)
• In 2005, the most premium domains, Website.com and Property.com, sold for $750,000, showcasing the value of premium domain names.
• Shoppingcart.com sold for $285,000, indicating a high value for specific commercial terms.
• (Netcraft)
• 97% of websites fail basic user experience standards, with issues in text legibility, space, task flow, and privacy/security policies. Only 3% have passing scores.

(Forrester report 2021 Sloan Review, MIT)

• About 93% of all global web traffic comes from search engines (Source: USA Today)
• 62.9% of all websites as of 2024 use WordPress, making it the most common Content Management System (CMS)
  Linktree had the highest average bounce rate at 85.56%, while pornhub.com recorded the lowest at 20.80%. (Reboot Online Survey 2023)
• The popular video game Grand Theft Auto V features 83 distinct in-game websites accessible through its virtual web browser, touching everything from social networking to real estate. (GTA Fandom)

How Many Websites Are There In The World 2024?

• There are 192.9 million active sites worldwide as of 2024. Including the active and inactive ones, the number reaches approximately 1.09 billion. (Siteefy)

Here is some essential data on significant players in the web hosting and server market from 2024:

• OpenResty gained 2.2 million sites (+1.98%), increasing its market share to 10.1%.
• Cloudflare saw a growth of 1.5 million sites (+1.18%) as of October 2024.
• Apache lost 2.2 million sites (-1.11%), now holding 17.6% of the market.
• Microsoft experienced a decrease of 699,464 sites (-3.45%).

(NetCraft)

How Many Websites Are On Google?

• Google’s index contains between 50 and 70 billion web pages as of today. (Worldwebsize)
• Google.com is the most commonly visited website in the world, with 168.67 billion hits as of December 2023.
• 90.68% of global web searches used Google, as per the latest available data till December 2023. (Reboot Online)

How Many Websites Are On The Internet: Websites Per Domain

• There are 362.4 million domain name registrations across all top-level domains (TLDs) as of Q2 2024, with a 1.6% increase (5.8 million) year over year.

The 10 largest TLDs by rank are:

1. .com
2. .cn
3. .de
4. .net
5. .org
6. .uk
7. .ru
8. .nl
9. .br
10. .au

 .com domain name base totaled 157.6 million domain name registrations, and the .net domain name base totaled 13.0 million in 2024.

There are 34.6 million new generic TLD (ngTLD) domain name registrations, representing 9.5% of all TLD registrations by the end of the second quarter of 2024.

The top 10 ccTLDs in the world comprise 59.0% of all ccTLD domain name registrations as of June 30, 2024. Here is the list of these top 10:

(DNBI)

• A fire at the OVHcloud datacenter in Strasbourg in 2021 took 3.6 million websites offline, impacting 464,000 distinct domains.
• 184,000 websites using the .fr country code top-level domain (ccTLD) were affected, accounting for 1.9% of all .fr domains worldwide.
• 880,000 websites with the .com top-level domain were taken offline across 180,000 domains. (NetCraft)

Mobile Website Statistics: How Many Websites In The World?

• 76.17% of the World’s top websites are mobile-friendly. (Canonicalized)
• 70% of websites shown in Google search results had already transitioned to mobile-first indexing by September 2020. (Google for Developers)
• Despite Google’s mobile-friendly websites, only about 17% of these websites scored 100/100. [the minimum score to pass the Google Mobile-Friendly Test is 80%] (Canonicalized)
• 53% of users will abandon a mobile website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.
• However, 79% of mobile users stated that they are more likely to revisit and/or share a website if it is easy to use.(Think With Google)
• Users are 5 times more likely to give up on a website if the site isn’t mobile-optimized.
• Over half (52%) of users say they’re less likely to engage with a company after a poor mobile website experience.
• 85% of adults expect a company’s mobile website to be at least as good as their desktop version. (NAU)
• More than two-thirds (66.02%) of UK web traffic was from mobile devices (Reboot Online Survey 2023)

How Many Websites Exist For Business?

• More than 28% of businesses participate in online activities, and by 2023, 71% had their own website
• The global website builder market is projected to reach USD 3951.5 million by 2024 and is expected to grow at an impressive CAGR of 28.60% from 2024 to 2031.

The key players in the website builder market are:

(Cognitive Market Research)

• 78% of UK SMEs have a website, representing over three-quarters of the sector. (Reboot Online Survey 2023)

Small Business Websites Statistics For 2024

• 43% of small businesses intend to improve their website’s performance, highlighting the increasing significance of digital presence.
• 55% of small businesses in India were founded within the last five years.
• Notably, 62% of these businesses rely on websites, e-commerce platforms, or online stores as their primary sales channels. (Cognitive Market Research)
• The growth of .io domains can be tied to small businesses’ adoption of modern TLDs like .io for tech-related ventures. Here are the numbers related to it as of 2024:
• 733,662 .io domains were active in October 2024, compared to just 4,224 in January 2013, showing significant growth.
• Around 17,000 of the top million busiest sites use the .io TL (NetCraft)

 Design And User Experience Website Statistics

• 50% of internet users consider a website’s design when forming opinions about businesses (Clutch)
• Nearly 8 in 10 customers (79%) will actively look for another website if they’re not satisfied with the one they find.
• Even more concerning, 88% of online consumers say they’re unlikely to return to a website after having a bad experience.
• 38% of visitors will stop engaging with a website if they find the content or layout unattractive

(NAU)

Number Of Websites By Year

• By 1994, the internet had grown to hit the 4-digit mark, encompassing close to 3,000 websites.

Here’s a year-wise breakdown of the number of websites for the first 13 years:

(Statista)

• In 2017, global websites experienced an impressive surge, doubling from 1.1 billion to 2.3 billion in just one year.
• Despite the surge in 2017, global websites steadily declined to 1.3 billion by 2023.

Here, take a look at the number of websites by year as per the latest data:

(Reboot Online)

• There were only 130 websites in 1993. By 1995, this had grown to 23,500, and by 1996, the web had expanded to 100,000. (Matthew Gray of the MIT)
• British physicist Tim Berners-Lee published the first website on 6 August 1991 at CERN in Switzerland. 
• It was hosted on Berners-Lee’s NeXT computer and described the World Wide Web project.
• Tim Berners-Lee developed the first website, “nxoc01.cern.ch” making it the first website ever. (later renamed to info.cern.ch)
• The evolution of websites in its first decade (1991 to 2000) has shown dramatic growth from a single website in 1991 to over 1 billion pages by 2000, marking one of the fastest adoptions of any technology in human history.

Take a look at these landmarks:

(Zakon)

Number Of Websites By Language

• 52.1% of all websites are in English, making it the dominant language on the web by a wide margin compared to other languages. 
• Spanish is used only 5.5% of the time on websites globally, whereas German is used only 4.8%

Here is a quick look at all the known languages used on websites as of 2024:

(Statista)

Number Of Websites By Country

• The United States has an impressive lead with over 133 million websites, which is more than 7 times the number of websites hosted in China, the country in second place.

Here is a quick table showing the exact number of websites by Country:

(Registrar Owl)

• The least number of websites to exist by Country is that of North Korea as of 2024.
• North Korea has only 55 websites that can be accessed in this region.

(North Korea Tech)

Most Visited Websites Ranked

• Google.com and YouTube.com dominate the web with an enormous lead in monthly visits, with Google at 175 billion and YouTube at 113 billion visits as per the latest data of 2023.

Let us have a look at the most visited websites in the world and how many visits they get:

(Statista)