How Many Websites Are There: Key Highlights
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The web is massive, but activity is concentrated: More than 1.38 billion websites exist, yet only about 15% are actively maintained, meaning real competition happens within a much smaller slice of the internet.
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Visibility and security now define website value: Traffic, links and search dominance are increasingly concentrated on a few platforms, while rising breach volumes and cybercrime costs turn poorly maintained websites into business risks.
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Web growth favors strategy over scale: From domain choices to industry consolidation and platform dominance, successful websites are treated as long-term business assets with clear ownership, ongoing investment and performance accountability.
How many websites are there on the internet?
The answer matters more than it used to.
At the end of 2025, the web housed more than 1.38 billion websites, making it one of the largest and most competitive digital environments ever created.
Since its inception, the World Wide Web has expanded from a handful of experimental pages into a global infrastructure that supports commerce, media, communication and entire industries.
New websites launch constantly while others disappear just as quickly, making the true shape of the web harder to define than a single headline number.
By looking at the latest website statistics across platforms, domains and industries, we can better understand how the web is evolving, where competition is concentrating and what these changes mean for businesses operating online today.
How Many Websites Are There?
Although the internet has already reached an incredible scale, it continues to expand. The latest data provides insight into the number of websites and the ongoing growth of the digital world:
- Out of all websites in the world, only about 200 million are active. This means that roughly 15% of all websites are actively maintained and visited.
- The number of new websites that emerge every day is 252,000.
- 70.41% of all websites are registered in unknown locations.
- As of the end of the third quarter of 2025, there were 378.5 million domain name registrations worldwide across all top-level domains. This represented an increase of around 6.8 million compared to Q2 and about 16.2 million year-over-year.
- 49.2% of all websites are in English, making it the most frequently used language for web content.
- A total of 5.56 billion people are on the internet worldwide.
- Every day, 402.74 million terabytes of data is produced.
- 43.4% of all websites use WordPress.
- The global website builder industry is expected to be worth $2.7 billion by 2027.
- 93.64 million user records were breached worldwide in the second half of 2025.
- The global cost of cybercrime will reach $15.63 trillion by 2029, following more than a decade of uninterrupted growth.
What These Website Statistics Mean For Executives
The statistics above show how web scale, security exposure and platform concentration are reshaping what executives should expect from a website and what it can put at risk when governance is unclear:
Strategic Direction & Ownership
- Scale favors purpose and sustained oversight. In an environment where new websites appear daily, advantage comes from a site built around a defined audience, a specific business role and ongoing executive accountability rather than frequent redesigns or content expansion.
- Popular platforms demand leadership involvement. Broad adoption reduces development friction, but without standards set at the executive level, these platforms can erode consistency, technical quality and long-term return.
Business Risk & Digital Vulnerabilities
- Websites are part of the company’s risk profile. Rising breach volumes and accelerating data creation mean outdated systems, unclear access controls and delayed updates can expose revenue, credibility and compliance standing.
- Higher digital activity raises the stakes of neglect. As more customer interactions flow through websites, even minor gaps in security or maintenance can escalate into issues that require senior intervention.
Executive Tradeoffs & Accountability
- Speed often reduces control over quality. Tools that enable rapid launches and low-cost builds also make it easier for security gaps, inconsistencies and technical debt to accumulate without visibility.
- Ownership funds long-term stability. Ongoing investment and accountability increase predictability, reduce exposure and protect brand equity over time, rather than concentrating risk around launch milestones.
How Many Websites Are On Google?
Looking at key stats on Google can provide a clearer picture of the current state of the World Wide Web. Below, we’ve listed some essential statistics regarding the number of websites and web pages:
- Google is the most-visited website, with 98.2 billion monthly visits. It’s followed by YouTube (48.1 billion) and Facebook (9.68 billion).
- Google is also the most linked-to website globally, with 468,745 links leading to its pages. It’s followed by Facebook (461,637) and YouTube (417,827).
- Google accounts for 82.24% of the global desktop search market.
- 158,548 Google queries are made every second.
What These Google Statistics Mean For Executives
The data above highlights how deeply Google intermediates visibility, demand capture and credibility, turning search performance into a business dependency rather than a marketing channel:
Strategic Direction & Ownership
- Google is the primary gateway to the internet. With unmatched traffic volume, link authority and search market share, visibility on Google directly influences brand discovery, credibility and demand generation.
- Authority is built over time, not campaigns. Being referenced and cited across the web signals trust to search engines, which favors brands that invest consistently in expertise, relevance and digital credibility.
Business Risk & Digital Vulnerabilities
- Overreliance on one gateway concentrates exposure. Heavy dependence on a dominant search platform increases sensitivity to algorithm changes, policy updates and competitive displacement if performance is not actively monitored at a senior level.
- Poor search hygiene weakens market perception. Inaccurate, outdated or thin content can suppress visibility and credibility at scale, limiting growth even when demand exists.
Executive Tradeoffs & Accountability
- Control over demand requires ongoing investment. Search visibility reduces reliance on paid acquisition, but it demands sustained commitment to quality, governance and technical upkeep rather than episodic spend.
- Authority trades speed for durability. Building long-term search relevance takes time and ongoing ownership of content, site performance and third-party references, but it produces a more stable pipeline and lowers exposure to rising acquisition costs over time.
The Number Of Websites Per Domain
The .com domain remains dominant in the market, but recent trends in domain usage are showing some interesting shifts.
The following statistics highlight these changes:
- 43.7% of all websites use the .com domain, making it the most popular domain in the world. .org and .de domains follow with 4.2% and 3.2%, respectively.
- 43% of all websites use a generic TLD. In addition, 40% use a country TLD and 19% use a new generic TLD.
- There are 11,522,488 websites in the world with the .org domain.
- Wikipedia is the most visited .org website, with 4.4 billion monthly visits.
- There are 5.8 million websites with the .ru domain name.
- With 36.12 million registered domains, .cn is the world’s most-used country code top-level domain (ccTLD).
- There are around 359.3 million domain name registrations. This amounts to 1 domain name registration per 22 people on the planet.
- The average cost of a standard domain, such as .com or .net, is between $10 and $20 per year.
- The .xyz domain is the most used new gTLD with a 14.94% market share.
- In Q3 2025, analysis of domains reported as serving malware shows that the .com TLD hosted the largest number of malware domains — 10,437, significantly more than other top-level domains such as .ru (1,341), .top (915), .net (630) and .org (621).
What These Domain Statistics Mean For Executives
The insights below show how domain strategy affects credibility, geographic reach and security exposure, turning what often feels like a minor technical detail into a business signal with reputational and operational consequences:
Strategic Direction & Ownership
- Domain signals market intent. The continued dominance of familiar extensions means buyers still associate certain domains with legitimacy and scale, so it’s important to align domain strategy with target markets, brand positioning and growth plans.
- Geography increasingly influences naming strategy. The widespread use of country-specific domains reflects how localization, regulation and regional trust expectations shape how organizations establish relevance in different markets.
Business Risk & Digital Vulnerabilities
- High-volume domains attract more malicious use. Broad adoption makes popular extensions more attractive for phishing and malware activity, increasing the importance of monitoring, registrar controls and proactive domain security practices.
- Unmanaged domains create internal exposure. Excess registrations, forgotten renewals or loosely controlled domains can be exploited for impersonation and brand misuse when ownership and oversight are unclear.
Executive Tradeoffs & Accountability
- Brand protection adds structural overhead. Securing primary and defensive domains increases administrative complexity, but it reduces exposure to fraud, reputational damage and customer confusion.
- Low acquisition cost hides cumulative risk. Domains are inexpensive to register, yet renewals, security configuration and compliance requirements accumulate, creating risk when they are not actively tracked.
The Number Of Websites Per Industry
Internet presence is crucial for businesses across various industries. Let’s look at the number of websites in different sectors to highlight the importance of having a website:
- Over 24 million of all websites are eCommerce, a decrease from 27 million in 2024. It’s still significantly higher than the 9.2 million eCommerce sites recorded in 2019.
- The U.S. has the most eCommerce websites, with the number currently standing at 12 million. It’s followed by the U.K. (1.1 million), Brazil (0.7 million) and Germany (0.7 million).
- The New York Times is the most popular news website in the world with 10.8 million digital subscribers. It’s followed by Substack (4 million) and The Wall Street Journal (3.8 million).
- The most popular gaming website in the U.S. is roblox.com with a 12.54% share of visits. It’s followed by twitch.tv (10.02%) and chess.com (1.55%).
- As of November 2025, Cricbuzz (cricbuzz.com) was the most visited sports website globally by organic search traffic, attracting an estimated 335.8 million monthly visits, followed by ESPNcricinfo (235.3 million) and ESPN (230.6 million).
- Booking.com is the most-visited travel website worldwide, recording 518.65 million visits in July 2025.
What These Industry Website Statistics Mean For Executives
Website performance expectations increasingly follow sector-specific leaders, which means competitive pressure, monetization models and operational risk vary widely by industry:
Strategic Direction & Ownership
- Category leaders set expectations for everyone else. Whether it’s news, gaming, sports or travel, traffic and subscriber growth are concentrating around a small number of dominant websites, raising the bar for experience, content quality and performance across industries.
- Revenue model dictates site priorities. Transaction-driven businesses, subscription publishers and engagement-led platforms succeed for different reasons, making alignment between business model and website structure a leadership responsibility.
Business Risk & Digital Vulnerabilities
- High saturation narrows tolerance for failure. In industries with thousands of comparable websites, small declines in performance, usability or stability can quickly push users toward better-established competitors.
- Attention concentrates around a few destinations. When traffic flows heavily toward a handful of platforms, competitors face greater exposure if visibility, referrals or search positions weaken.
Executive Tradeoffs & Accountability
- Growth increases operational complexity. Expanding content, products or features multiplies the burden on infrastructure, quality control and compliance.
- Visibility amplifies scrutiny. As audience size grows, errors, outages or inaccuracies carry greater reputational and commercial consequences.
How Many Businesses Have A Website?
Every business needs an online presence and having a functional and well-designed website is essential. Below are some key statistics on the number of companies with websites:
- Out of all small businesses, 71% have a website.
- 27% of small businesses don’t have a website because they believe they aren’t relevant to their industry.
- 27% of all businesses conduct online activity.
- The average website cost for a small business is $3,200.
- Maintaining their website is the biggest challenge for 33% of small businesses.
What These Business Website Statistics Mean For Executives
Website adoption across businesses reflects widening gaps in market credibility, operational maturity and growth readiness, with absence and neglect creating different but equally material forms of risk:
Strategic Direction & Ownership
- Website adoption signals business legitimacy. As most companies maintain a site, not having one increasingly raises questions about scale, stability and readiness among buyers, partners and potential acquirers.
- Perceived irrelevance obscures buyer behavior. Organizations that dismiss the need for a website often overlook how prospects validate credibility, compare providers and screen options before any direct engagement.
Business Risk & Digital Vulnerabilities
- Lack of a website limits narrative control. Without a central digital property, businesses rely on third-party platforms and directories to represent them, reducing accuracy and consistency.
- Maintenance gaps introduce avoidable risk. Sites that are outdated or poorly maintained can weaken trust, expose security issues and create friction that undermines commercial activity.
Executive Tradeoffs & Accountability
- Execution matters more than entry cost. With average website costs relatively modest, the real barrier is not launch investment but the ongoing effort required to maintain, update and improve performance over time.
- Websites need operational ownership. Maintenance challenges signal that many businesses treat their websites as static tools rather than active growth assets, limiting their impact on visibility, credibility and revenue.
Historical Website Statistics
Websites have evolved significantly since the early days of the internet.
Let’s explore some statistics that illustrate how they have developed over the years:
- symbolics.com, which was the world’s first domain name, was registered in 1985.
- mitre.org was registered in 1985, making it the world’s first-ever registered .org website.
- The first-ever web page on the internet went live on August 6, 1991. The page still exists, and you can check it out here.
- There were 17.1 million websites in 2000.
- In 2005, the number of websites on the internet increased to almost 65 million. This was also the year YouTube was created.
- In 2010, there were almost 207 million websites worldwide. Both Instagram and Pinterest were launched that year.
- 38% of pages that existed in 2013 have been removed by 2024.
- The milestone of 1 billion websites was reached in 2014 for the first time.
- The total number of websites then fell below that mark before stabilizing above 1 billion again in March 2016.
- People spent more time online during the COVID-19 pandemic, with global internet traffic increasing by 40% between February and April 2020.
What These Historical Website Statistics Mean For Executives
HiHistorical patterns show that websites are temporary by default and shaped by platform cycles, usage spikes and changing behavior more than linear progress:
Strategic Direction & Ownership
- Longevity depends on relevance, not age. Many websites disappear as platforms, formats and user expectations change, which means leadership should plan for adaptation rather than assuming digital assets will retain value without renewal.
- External events reshape digital demand quickly. Spikes in online activity during global disruptions show how websites must be prepared to absorb sudden changes in usage, expectations and load without advance warning.
Business Risk & Digital Vulnerabilities
- Digital decay is common. When large volumes of pages disappear over the years, outdated links, archived content and abandoned sections can still influence reputation and search visibility.
- Platform cycles create dependency risk. When new platforms emerge and capture attention, businesses relying on one traffic source or one content format face greater exposure if user behavior changes.
Executive Tradeoffs & Accountability
- Websites age faster than many core systems. Historical patterns show that digital assets require regular reassessment to stay aligned with current platforms, user expectations and business priorities.
- Adaptability introduces planning complexity. Designing websites to evolve with technology and usage requires more frequent review cycles and clearer accountability, even as it reduces exposure to sudden change.
Build A Website That Performs With Digital Silk
The scale of the modern web shows one thing clearly: simply having a website is no longer enough.
Growth today depends on how well your website performs, adapts and supports your business goals over time.
At Digital Silk, we design and build websites that go beyond presence.
Our team focuses on performance, clarity and long-term scalability, helping brands stand out from competitors and turn traffic into measurable results.
As an end-to-end web design agency, our services include:
- Custom web design
- Custom web development
- Branding services
- Digital marketing services
- eCommerce development
- Shopify development
We strive towards measurable results, being transparent in every stage of the journey and treat each project like our own.
Contact us, call us at (800) 206-9413 or fill the Request a Quote form below to schedule a free, custom consultation.
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