How Many Websites Are on the Internet?

If your business doesn’t have a website, you’re missing out on the opportunity to put your products or services in front of an audience of 5.56 billion people.¹

Having a website will make it easier for you to succeed, provided you identify your target audience and employ the right marketing strategies. Now, it’s possible you already have a personal or business website and are here just to learn how many websites are on the internet.

In that case, here’s your answer: almost 1.2 billion.² If you work in or own a small business and are weighing the pros and cons of launching a website, let me tell you: about 71% of small businesses have a website, so it’s not too late for you to jump on the bandwagon!³

Did you know that about 252,000 new websites are created each day?⁴ You probably didn’t! I’m betting you’ll be joining the party soon. Here are my top website statistics:

• Approximately 996 Million Websites Aren’t Active
• 252,000 New Websites Are Made Daily
• Google Has 136 Billion Monthly Visits
• On Average, a Webpage Takes Around 2.5 Seconds to Load on a Desktop Computer
• The Average Website Bounce Rate Is 49.6%

Read on!

Have you heard about British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee? While he’s not as famous as David Beckham, he definitely has a place in history — he published the first-ever website on December 20, 1990.⁵ And yes, you can visit it if you want! Just Google info.cern.ch.

Let me warn you: it’s far from the most glamorous website, but hey, he helped birth the World Wide Web, and that’s all that really matters.

We now have approximately 1.2 billion websites! Time flies, eh? According to my estimates, this number could shoot up to around 1.25 billion by the end of 2025.^2,4

While we can celebrate the number of websites on the internet, unfortunately, only 17% of them are actively visited and maintained. Yes, you heard me right: around 204 million of them are active.²

About 996 million websites are either abandoned, have limited user interaction, contain broken links, or feature irrelevant or outdated content.

If and when you launch your own website, make sure you regularly maintain and update it.

Since we build about 252,000 new websites daily, that means a new one pops up every 0.34 seconds! Crazy numbers, right?

Considering the typical adult’s average reading speed of 300 words per minute (WPM), it’s possible that by the time you finish reading this article, about 1,470 new websites will have been built!^4,6

If you think ChatGPT is going to replace Google anytime soon, you’re wrong. ChatGPT is more like that nerdy friend who knows a lot of stuff. Google? Well, Google is like a librarian who knows exactly where each book is.

Most Visited Websites in the World (Monthly Traffic):

So, while ChatGPT.com is the 9th most popular website in the world with around 4.75 billion monthly visits, Google.com is king. It’s visited about 136 billion times each month.⁷ If you want your website to be successful, direct marketing efforts toward ranking favorably on Google.

After all, Google is the world’s most popular web search engine, commanding approximately 79.10% of the global search engine market share. Bing.com is a distant second, with a market share of just 12.20%.⁸

Do you know what a web hosting company is? Behind every website and addictive social media platform is a web hosting provider. They’re basically the muscle behind your website, making sure it’s live, fast, and secure.

Some web hosts even take it a step further by giving you the tools and resources to build your website from scratch.

That’s why the web hosting market has grown into a commanding $192.8 billion industry.⁹ While there are more than 330,000 web hosts on the market, you should choose a prominent web host that offers everything you need to build and host your website.¹⁰

I talk about the number of websites that use WordPress in every other stat guide! I mean, I’ve been exploring a ton of website-related statistics, and since WordPress is the backbone of around 43.5% of websites, it’s more than understandable.

If you want a number, that’s about 522 million websites.¹¹

If you’re curious about WordPress’s popularity, I’ve got you covered: it’s 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.

So, if you want a credible content management system (CMS) for your website, WordPress is almost always the answer. You can choose from thousands of free themes and plugins and design an exceptional website.

Here’s a list of plugins I recommend:

• Yoast SEO: boosts search visibility.
• Akismet Anti-Spam: blocks spam comments.
• WP Rocket: speeds up your site.
• UpdraftPlus: easy automatic backups.
• Wordfence Security: protects from hackers.
• Elementor: drag-and-drop design.
• WooCommerce: enables online stores.
• Smush: compresses image files.
• Redirection: manages broken links.
• MonsterInsights: simplifies Google Analytics.

And please, be creative when selecting a theme. Get rolling!

GoDaddy is the world’s leading domain registrar and a reliable web hosting company.

To put it into numbers, it’s home to around 84 million websites.¹² Now, just because I have a soft spot for GoDaddy doesn’t mean you have to choose it for your hosting needs.

I’m going to list some of its features, and then you can take a call: 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.

Honestly, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

All you have to do is head over to the website, type the domain name you want, select an appropriate hosting plan, and boom — you’re ready to build your website.

One of the first things you should look for in a web host is the page loading speed it offers. GoDaddy, for example, has a fast webpage loading speed of around 236 ms.

Some other fast web hosts include GreenGeeks (118.6 ms), Hostinger (136 ms), SiteGround (139.6 ms), Bluehost (153 ms), and WP Engine (188 ms).^13,14 Now, while web hosts provide you with infrastructure for fast server response times, you need to optimize your website to ensure it’s fast and scalable.

Popular Web Host Loading Times

This explains why the average webpage takes around 2.5 seconds to load on a desktop browser and 8.6 seconds on a mobile browser.¹⁵ Just buying a super-quick hosting plan is not enough.

Well, here’s a website statistic that perfectly captures the information I shared in the previous two stats.

If your website has a clean and professional layout, high-quality content, clear and intuitive navigation, strong calls to action, and is optimized for speed, I see no reason why your visitors should bounce!

So, if your website loads in under two seconds and you get everything else right, you can expect a low bounce rate. While I can’t guarantee a 9% bounce rate, as the metric varies between website types, I promise you’ll be in good shape.¹⁶

While speed kills on the road, a lack of it could “kill” your online business.

Be honest with me: how long do you usually wait for a website to load? A couple of seconds? If your website takes three or more seconds to load, how can you expect visitors to stick around? According to research, around 40% of them wouldn’t.¹⁶

Here are some tips to speed up your website:

• Use a content delivery network (CDN). Cloudflare is my top choice.
• Optimize and compress images and videos.
• Implement lazy loading for media files.
• Leverage browser caching.
• Audit your website regularly.

You could have the prettiest website in the land, but if it isn’t optimized for speed, your visitors won’t hang around.

Search engines like Google and Bing start around 68% of online visits.¹⁷ I know what you’re thinking: “Does my website need a blog?” Yes and no. While it’s true that having a blog can help you attract organic search traffic, you don’t need one to be successful.

If you optimize your webpages for SEO, leverage local SEO (a Google Business Profile is a must), swear by social media, run paid ads, partner with other websites or influencers for backlinks, and, of course, create other types of content (like videos), you can increase your website’s visibility.

Another factor you should consider is the website bounce rate. Put simply, if a visitor leaves your website after viewing just one webpage, they’ve “bounced.”

And if your website is top-tier for speed, we both know that’s not the problem — you need to figure out what’s turning your visitors off.

Here are the average website bounce rates for different website types

• eCommerce: 20% to 45%
• Blogs: 70% to 90%
• SaaS: 35% to 55%
• Services: 10% to 50%
• B2B: 30% to 55%
• B2C: 35% to 60%
• News: 60% to 85%¹⁸

Have you displayed too many ads? Is your website optimized for mobile? Please don’t tell me your site is loaded with intrusive pop-ups — an instant turn-off. Or maybe there’s a technical glitch.

Anyway, it’s your job to get rid of the problem. How else will you convert your visitors into paying customers?

Now, before you swipe your credit card at GoDaddy, you need to ask yourself, “What kind of hosting infrastructure do I need?” Shared hosting, for example, is sufficient for a small website.

If you have a budget of around $50 per month and anticipate your website scaling rapidly, cloud hosting and virtual private server (VPS) hosting are excellent choices.

You should consider dedicated hosting only if you need exclusive, powerful resources and complete control. Check out our guides at HostingAdvice.com on these topics and make an informed decision.

The best web hosts provide these features, no matter the hosting type:

• A high uptime guarantee (nearly 100%)
• Sufficient storage space and bandwidth
• Optimizations for blazing-fast page loading speeds
• A free domain name and SSL certificate
• Robust security features
• A control panel for centralized management
• Easy, one-click web app installations (like WordPress)
• Website design support
• 24/7/365 customer support service
• Reliability and value for your money

I 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. GoDaddy? It offers a well-rounded hosting option.

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide/
2. https://siteefy.com/how-many-websites-are-there/
3. https://www.digitalsilk.com/digital-trends/how-many-websites-are-there/
4. https://www.demandsage.com/website-statistics/
5. https://www.androidauthority.com/anniversary-first-website-3510479/
6. https://www.goldenstepsaba.com/resources/reading-statistics/
7. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1201880/most-visited-websites-worldwide/
8. https://www.windowslatest.com/2025/05/04/microsofts-bing-share-is-now-12-2-google-drops-to-79-10/
9. https://blog.hostopia.com/web-hosting-statistics-market-analysis/
10. https://www.grabon.in/indulge/tech/web-hosting-statistics/
11. https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_management/
12. https://www.godaddy.com/
13. https://codeless.co/fastest-web-hosting/
14. https://www.bitcatcha.com/my/hosting-reviews/fastest/
15. https://www.tooltester.com/en/blog/website-loading-time-statistics/
16. https://seosandwitch.com/website-speed-statistics/
17. https://www.demandsage.com/seo-statistic/
18. https://www.causalfunnel.com/blog/average-bounce-rate-by-industry-2025-benchmarks/