How Many Websites Are on the Internet? (2024 Stats)

Every business, entrepreneur, and creative worth their salt should have a website and at least one social media account — Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) are good options. These platforms put you on the digital map that is the internet in front of an audience of 5.3 billion people.¹ A website, in particular, is a must.

A website makes selling your niche-specific products or services much easier, provided you employ the right marketing strategies. The Google search algorithm takes into account hundreds of factors to rank content, and the race to appear in top Google search results is on. More than 1 billion websites compete for attention on the internet, and approximately 71% of businesses have a website.²

Here are some more statistics to illustrate just how prevalent websites are and how easy it is to build a web presence for yourself or your business.

The internet is home to a whopping 1.13 billion websites.² The first-ever website was published on August 6, 1991, by British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee.³ While far from the most glamorous website, his creation was of great significance as he helped birth the World Wide Web. Quite fittingly, the website is about the web (and yes, it is an HTTP website).

Fast forward the years, and we now have more than 1 billion websites in the world. Unfortunately, 82% of these websites are inactive.² This means that roughly 926,600,000 websites have not been maintained or updated for a long period of time. These websites may have limited user interaction, broken links, or irrelevant or outdated content.

In some cases, the domain registration may have expired (most web hosts only offer one year of free domain registration), or the website owner may have abandoned the website altogether. A fraction of inactive websites could be parked domains as well. All in all, while the total number of websites on the web is staggering, the active website count is what matters.

Only 18%, or approximately 203,400,000, of all websites are actively visited and maintained.² The number of active websites on the internet is a more significant statistic than the total number of websites, as it provides a better representation of the present state of the web and its dynamic landscape.

Active websites are regularly maintained and updated by their owners. They frequently engage users and rank higher in Google search results due to their regular activity, better SEO practices, and updated content. These websites include digital news outlets, blogs, eCommerce stores, and social media platforms, among many others.

While the number of inactive websites far surpasses the number of active websites, there is light at the end of the tunnel. The total number of websites is growing by the day, or rather by the second, and there is reason to hope that new website owners will better maintain their websites.

A new website is created every three seconds.² Considering the typical adult’s average reading speed of 250 words per minute (WPM), it is possible that by the time you finish reading this article, 140 new websites will have been built.⁴ That also means 1,200 websites are created every hour, and 28,800 websites are built daily.

We must note that it is impossible to accurately convey the total number of websites on the web, as this figure constantly changes. And with the creation of every new website, we also have to factor in those that become inactive in the same time frame.

The estimates we have portrayed for the total number of websites, active websites, and inactive websites are as close to real figures as they get. As soon as a new website is created, the quest to rank on Google begins.

Google is the world’s most popular web search engine, commanding 92% of the global search engine market share.⁵ It also happens to be the world’s most visited website, followed by YouTube.⁶ Ranking favorably in a niche-specific Google search result is the goal of many website owners.

Google has an astronomical 89.3 billion monthly visits.⁷ The average internet user spends around 10 minutes and 46 seconds on the website and visits nearly nine pages.⁷ In comparison, Microsoft Bing, the world’s second-most popular search engine, has just 1.2 billion monthly visits.⁷

In terms of monthly Google desktop traffic, the US leads the way (27.21%), followed by India (4.54%), Brazil (4.33%), the UK (3.91%), and Japan (3.87%).⁷ What’s more, 16.3% of the search engine’s organic website traffic in the US comes from people searching for Google.⁸

Behind every eCommerce website and addictive social media platform is a web hosting provider. That’s why the web hosting market has grown into a commanding $108.54 billion industry, powering websites for blogs, SMBs, and mid and large-sized businesses.⁹

More than 330,000 web hosts exist in the market, supporting more than 4.66 billion users worldwide.¹⁰ The web hosting industry is constantly evolving, with AI trends currently dominating the space. Environmental protection and customer satisfaction are also important aspects. No matter the size of your business or its specific needs, web hosting companies have your back. Some offer custom hosting packages as well.

The majority of websites on the web are built on WordPress, and for this reason, most web hosting providers offer self-managed or managed WordPress plans.

While Google is the most popular website in the world, WordPress is the most renowned web content management system (CMS), powering more than 487 million of the 1.13 billion websites that we discussed earlier.¹¹ That means that approximately 43.1% of the websites on the internet are built on the WordPress CMS.¹¹

WordPress’s popularity is a culmination of several factors, including its free, open-source core software (which can be installed from WordPress.org), vibrant collection of themes and plugins, flexible infrastructure, and helpful community forums. WordPress also offers more than 20,000 themes, of which approximately 10,000 are free.¹²

You can also take advantage of exceptional WordPress plugins such as Elementor (the most popular WordPress plugin), WooCommerce, Yoast SEO, and Jetpack to build an effective WordPress website.

GoDaddy is the world’s leading domain registrar and a magnificent web hosting company. The web host is home to around 52 million websites, making it the most popular hosting service in the industry by a wide margin.¹³

It offers industry-leading reliability, free domain registration across its hosting plans, a variety of cheap hosting options, a 99.9% uptime promise, advanced security measures, new-age hosting capabilities, and marketing tools.

Additionally, its optimized web server hardware guarantees fast server response times. The last thing you need is a slow website, and GoDaddy ensures that your website is fast and scalable.

Speaking of fast page load speeds, the average webpage takes around 2.5 seconds to load on a desktop browser and 8.6 seconds on a mobile browser. In other words, mobile web pages take approximately 3.4x longer to load than desktop web pages.¹⁴

Top web hosts offer quicker page loading speeds. IONOS, for example, offers a full page loading speed of 1.23 seconds.¹⁵ Bluehost, GoDaddy, and HostGator offer full-page loading speeds of 1.36 seconds, 1.48 seconds, and 1.59 seconds respectively.¹⁵ But the title of fastest web host goes to A2 Hosting, and it is not even close.

Thanks to its AI-optimized software and hardware infrastructure, A2 Hosting offers a full page load speed of just 0.295 seconds.¹⁶

You need to consider several factors when choosing a hosting company for your website. First, you should determine your preferred hosting type. The most popular hosting types are shared hosting, dedicated hosting, virtual private server (VPS) hosting, cloud hosting, and WordPress hosting. Each category caters to different business needs.

We recommend IONOS for cheap, shared hosting, Bluehost for managed WordPress hosting, and Liquid Web for dedicated hosting. Kamatera is best for VPS hosting and Cloudways for cloud hosting. The speed of A2 Hosting is unparalleled, and GoDaddy offers a well-rounded hosting option.

You can purchase a web hosting plan, set up your website, and join the billions of websites already on the internet.

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1190263/internet-users-worldwide/
2. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/software/website-statistics/
3. http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html/
4. https://irisreading.com/what-is-the-average-reading-speed/
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Search/
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-visited_websites/
7. https://www.similarweb.com/website/google.com/#overview/
8. https://www.oberlo.com/blog/google-search-statistics/
9. https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/web-hosting-services-market-100863/
10. https://www.ssldragon.com/blog/web-hosting-trends/
11. https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress/
12. https://colorlib.com/wp/wordpress-statistics/
13. https://www.websitebuilderexpert.com/web-hosting/web-hosting-statistics/
14. https://www.tooltester.com/en/blog/website-loading-time-statistics/
15. https://www.ionos.com/hosting/web-hosting/
16. https://websitesetup.org/hosting-reviews/a2-hosting/