World's first web census

: Purpose — To measure the exact size of the World Wide Web (i.e., a census). The measure used is the number of publicly accessible web servers on port 80. Design/methodology/approach – Every IP address on the internet is queried for the presence of a Web server. Findings – Our census found 18,560,257 Web servers. Research limitations/implications – Any Web servers hidden behind a firewall, or that did not respond within a reasonable amount of time (20 seconds) were not counted by the census. Practical implications – Whenever a server is found, we download and store a copy of its homepage. The resulting database of homepages is a historical snapshot of the Web which will be mined for information in the future. Originality/value – Past web surveys performed by various research groups were only estimates of the size of the Web. This is the first time its size has been exactly measured.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: IJWIS
• Authors: Darcy G. Benoit, André Trudel
• Keywords: Accessible Web Servers, IJWIS 2007, Web Servers, World Wide Web