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[Serena Fenton <fents AT metalab.unc.edu>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [FYI] OCLC Researchers Measure the World Wide Web
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 14:23:57 -0400
From: Terry Kuny <terry.kuny AT xist.com>
Reply-To: Digital Libraries Research mailing list             
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OCLC Researchers Measure the World Wide Web

DUBLIN, Ohio, Oct. 16, 2000--

In their annual review of the World Wide Web, researchers at
OCLC have determined that the Web now contains about 7 million
unique sites; that the public Web-sites that offer content
that is freely accessible by the general public-constitutes about 40
percent of the total Web; and that the Web continues to expand
at a rapid pace, but its rate of growth is diminishing over time.

According to the group's latest estimates, there were 7.1
million unique web sites, a 50 percent increase over the previous
year's total of 4.7 million. Although the number of web sites has
nearly tripled in size in the last two years, year-to-year growth
rates are declining, falling from almost 80 percent between 1998
and 1999, to only about 50 percent between 1999 and 2000.

Public web sites constitute 41 percent of the Web, or about 2.9
million sites. Private sites- whose content is subject to explicit
access restrictions (e.g., Internet Protocol filters or password
authentication), or is not intended for public use (e.g., web
interfaces to privately owned hardware devices such as printers or
routers)-comprise 21 percent of the Web, or 1.5 million sites.
The remaining 2.7 million sites-or about 38 percent of the Web-
are provisional sites: their content is in an unfinished or
transitory state (e.g., server default pages or "Site under
construction" notices).

Adult sites-those offering sexually explicit content-now
constitute about 2 percent of the public Web, or 70,000 sites.
The proportion of the public Web occupied by adult sites has
remained unchanged since 1998.

"The Web continues to grow at a substantial rate," said Ed O'Neill,
manager of the OCLC Web Characterization Project. "But a comparison
of the year-to-year growth rates suggests that the Web's expansion
is slowing. This trend is even more pronounced in the public Web,
which grew by about 80 percent between 1997 and 1998 but only by
about a third between 1999 and 2000. Even in absolute terms, growth
seems to be slowing: the public Web increased by 713,000 sites in
the past year, compared to 772,000 sites between 1998 and 1999."

Brian Lavoie, a research scientist working on the Web Characterization
Project, notes the increasing incidence of non-public web content.
"For most people, the Web is the public Web-that's where most web
browsing takes place. But there's a lot of content out there that
you would probably never encounter in the course of casual browsing;
in other words, the private and provisional sites. Private sites
in particular have exhibited steady growth relative to public sites
in the past few years, accounting for about 12 percent of the Web
two years ago, compared to over 20 percent today."

The Web Characterization Project, conducted by the OCLC Office
of Research, has collected a random sample of web sites annually
since 1997. Current results are based on analysis of the June 2000
sample. For analytical purposes, a web site is defined as content
accessible through the HTTP protocol at a given location on the
Internet.

More information on the Web Characterization Project is on
the project web site


                         <http://wcp.oclc.org/>.


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