Netcraft: Internet Nears 150 Million Sites

The Netcraft Web Server survey, which has long been one of the leading benchmarks of Internet growth, has reached 150 million sites. Actually, 149,784,002 sites, to be exact. What's notable about this growth is that it comes barely a year after the Netcraft survey topped 100 million sites for the first time. That increase has been driven by enormous growth at the blogging services tracked by Netcraft, including Blogger and Microsoft Spaces.

If you're not familiar with Netcraft, you should spend some time exploring their site, as there's lots of useful data. I worked with Netcraft for three years before switching full-time to Data Center Knowledge in September. I primarily focused on writing research reports and articles for the Netcraft blog, and also worked with technology media. The day the Web Server Survey hit the 100 million site milestone was an interesting one, as I wound up on CNN.

It's hard to believe that just a year later, the survey is on the cusp of 150 million. These benchmarks always trigger debates about the best way to measure Internet growth, but Netcraft is a popular baseline, as its survey has been conducted every month since August 1995, when there were 18,000 sites and the NCSA web server had a 57 percent share.