Library Technology Guides

OCLC recently completed its annual review of the Web. It has determined that the Web now contains about 7.1 million unique Web sites, a 50% increase over the previous year's total of 4.7 million. Public Web sites constitute 41% of the Web, or about 2.9 million sites. Private sites, which have content subject to access restrictions, comprise 21% of the Web, or 1.5 million sites. The rest are unfinished or in a transitory state. Private sites are steadily increasing in numbers and as a percentage of the total. The growth of public Web sites is slowing; the public Web increased by 712,000 sites in the past year, compared with 772,000 in the previous year.