How are the pages on the internet counted?

Some terms need to clarified before trying to answer this question. First, a web page is an individual page on a screen. This is often confused with a website, or web presence, which means a group of pages that belong together. The important thing when it comes to counting is therefore correct identification of exactly what is being counted. Each site can be found via its domain address (such as, www.mydomain.com).

Sites are counted using special software which interrogates all known sites that operate as servers or hosts for one or more sites. Domains can also be counted through the various national registers to which applications have to be made. However, this number is different to that of the sites, because sometimes several domain names refer to the same content. Although it would also be possible to find out how many individual web-pages there are in the Internet, the fact that they change so rapidly means that any total is out of date.