Internet Statistics in 2024 - How Big is the Web Today?

From chatting, through ordering food, to completely replacing one’s real life with a virtual one, the internet is an inseparable part of our modern experience —whether we like it or not.

We’ve started taking for granted what has been a distant dream in the 1950s. The internet connects businesses, people, and resources across the world, with higher speed and efficiency than all other forms of contact.

By default, Techjury is fascinated with the modern phenomena, so here are some internet statistics to quench the thirst for power. Pardon, knowledge.

Internet Statistics To Make You Go WWWow!

• There are  5.16 billion internet users worldwide.
• The total number of internet users around the world grew by 98 million during the past 12 months.
  
• The usage of the internet increased by 1,355% from 2000 to 2023.
• 93% of American adults use the internet.
• As of July 2022, about 63% of the global population has accessed the internet.
• There were 154.6 million .com domains, which is the most of any top-level domains.
• So far, in 2022, Denmark, UAE, and Ireland have had the highest internet penetration rate in the world at 99%.
• The number of mobile internet users in Europe is expected to reach 83% of the population in 2025.
• Site statistics of August 2022 reveal there are nearly 2 billion websites on the Web.
• An estimated 2.7 trillion blog posts will be written by the end of 2022.
• There will be 300 million online shoppers in the US in 2023. 

Okay, now that we’ve warmed up, let’s start digging.

Fascinating Stats and Facts

It’s hard to fathom the actual size of the internet, but we can at least try.

1. The current internet population is 5.16 billion people.

(Source: Data Reportal)

The global population of internet users is growing by the minute. It boasts a 3.7% increase in the last 12 months—meaning another 178 users have been added in 2022 to the overall number.

However, there’s a stark imbalance in its regional distribution. Most internet users come from Eastern Asia—a whopping 1.16 billion—the least from Africa and the Middle East. Astoundingly, 1.02 billion Asian users are Chinese, meaning that most of its 1.4 billion population is online.

The US ranks third, after India (658 million), with slightly over 300 million users.

2. Americans’ internet usage in early 2000, about half of all adults were already online.

(Source: Statista)

 As of 2023, approximately 92 percent of individuals in the United States accessed the internet, up from nearly 75 percent in 2012. The United States is one of the biggest online markets worldwide and in 2022, there were nearly 299 million internet users in the country.

Percentage of population using the internet in the United States from 2016 to 2023

3. As of July 2022, global internet usage is 63.1%.

(Source: Data Reportal)

With internet penetration increasing and more businesses going digital, global internet usage is set to keep growing at such incredible speed. A lot more people have access to the internet as Wi-Fi is more publicly available than ever. So there’s only one way to go, and that is up!

4. Google gets an average of 9 billion daily searches in 2022.

(Source: Internet Live Stats)

Google has come a long way from the 10,000 daily searches it used to get when founded in 1998. Contrastingly, the search engine currently gets 104,895 queries every second! Meaning that in the minute it took you to read this stat, Google has received 6,278,400 new queries!

All this translates to over 9 billion searches per day! A perfect reflection of the rapidly increasing internet usage trends.

5. How many websites are there in the world?

(Source: Internet Live Stats)

At this exact moment, there are 1,977,999,420 websites worldwide. However, the number is rising so rapidly that by the time you’re reading this, it’ll most likely have gone over 2 billion! Impressive, right? It sure is, no matter if only about 20% of them are active.

6. Global median internet connection speed exceeds 30 Mbps.

(Source: Data Reportal)

This shows a 25% increase in the download speed for the past 12 months. Nevertheless, the median for fixed connections is still twice as high at 64.70 Mbps download speed. However, as phones currently have no difficulties loading a variety of content, including 4K videos, without delays or buffering, the difference has significantly less impact on day-to-day usage.

So which country has the fastest median mobile internet connection speed? That would be Norway, with 129.40 Mbps. The top five include: UAE (124.89 Mbps), Qatar (117.61 Mbps), South Korea (106.82 Mbps), and Kuwait (104.47 Mbps).

Alternatively, what is the country with the slowest one? The answer is Venezuela, with a median sitting at 4.98 Mbps. So the median speed in Norway is currently 26 times higher than the one in Venezuela.

Continuing with the next portion of fascinating internet statistics:

7. eCommerce in the US is set to break new ground by crossing the $1 trillion threshold in 2022.

(Source: Insider Intelligence)

With an increase of 9.4% from 2021, this year represents a significant milestone for ecommerce—crossing the $1 trillion mark! Alternatively, in 2022, the total retail spending in the US is forecast at $6.988 trillion.

eCommerce is continuing on its trend of immense growth. The current $5 trillion global market is expected to reach a whopping $7.4 trillion in 2025!

8. One-fifth of global sales are taking place online.

(Source: Statista)

This isn’t surprising at all. People like convenience, and ecommerce grants them that. So more and more people are choosing to shop and spend time in the comfort of their homes.

That’s a trend that is sure to keep growing in the coming years. What’s more, predictions indicate that by 2025, the ecommerce segment will make up a quarter of all retail sales worldwide.

Fun fact: Brazil is the fastest-growing online retail market, with a 20.73% CAGR between 2022 and 2025.

9. There will be 300 million online shoppers in the US in 2023.

(Source: Optin Monster)

This translates to 91% of the country’s current population. America is a nation of shoppers. So far, 69% of US citizens have shopped online. Additionally, a quarter does it at least once a month. The US is also the country with the leading average ecommerce revenue per shopper: $1,804. The top three is completed by the UK ($1,629) and Sweden ($1,446).

How Much Money Is Spent on the Internet?

And not only money but time and efforts. Let’s see how businesses and customers operate there before diving into more complex stats about the internet.

10. Over a quarter of the US internet users use ad blockers.

(Source: Statista)

This is terrible news for retailers, even more so as this percentage has been climbing slowly over the years. According to the latest internet traffic statistics, 27% of Americans make use of an ad-blocking service.

11. The nanosatellite market is predicted to peak at $154.9 million by 2026.

(Source: Industry Research)

The nano market is experiencing a colossal boom, with the increasing demand for and reliance on satellite tech. Just consider that the 2020 market size figure was put at $143.1 million.

12. Dom-com is the leading top-level domain with over 154.6 million recorded as of recently.

(Source: Siteefy)

The majority of people and brands prefer the .com domain. It’s not only the most popular but is also considered the most secure, as people are more willing to trust a brand that’s using it.

So .com boasts the higher number of domains. But who comes next?

The second place is occupied by .tk (Tokelau), with 24.7 million domains. Third comes China and .cn, with 20.7 million. The top five is completed by .de (Germany)—16.8 million—and .net—13.4 million.

13. Denmark, UAE, and Ireland have the highest internet penetration rate in the world at 99%.

(Source: Statista)

But wait, our internet usage statistics for 2022 are getting even more fascinating:

They boast a 99% penetration rate, which means that practically everyone in Denmark, UAE, and Ireland has access to the internet. Wow!

The UK, Switzerland, and South Korea follow closely with 98%. As of April 2022, the global average internet penetration rate was 63%.

14. The number of European mobile internet users is expected to reach 700.50 million by 2025.

 (Source: Statista)

People want to stay connected to the Web on the go. As such, they are increasingly inclined to use smartphones. Actually, the mobile market is growing exponentially, with well over half of all internet traffic now originating from portable devices.

15. How many blog posts are published per day?

(Source: Earth Web)

An estimate of over 2.7 trillion blog posts will be written by the end of 2022. This means that 7.5 million new posts are published online every day! Can you imagine? That’s a staggering sum and a massive network of information accessible to practically anyone.

Deep Web - Internet Facts and Statistics

No internet representation is complete without the Deep Web. As it represents an enormous portion of the Web, it should be discussed at least for a little bit. And yes, there is a difference between Deep and Dark Web.

16. The Deep Web consists of 7,500 terabytes of information.

(Source: Britannica)

Google and other search engines don’t index Deep Web pages. This is why the latter is perceived as a mysterious term.

Nonetheless, you can find government databases, public records, academic libraries, and more about the deep internet traffic through statistics and research.

To put these 7,500 terabytes in perspective, the Surface Web (Google, Bing, etc.) offers access to only 19 terabytes of data. While there is a common misconception, the Deep Web isn’t a restricted internet area. 

17. In 2017, the CIA released 12 million declassified document pages on the Deep Web.

(Source: Deutsche Welle)

There are even printer-friendly versions of the 930,000 documents. CIA also decided to add hashtags to their Twitter announcements - #Vietnam, #ColdWar, and others.

18. There are 550 billion individual documents on the Deep Web.

(Source: Trend Micro)

Internet statistics show they are spread across 200,000 websites. And before you start recollecting Mr. Robot scenes, 95% of that information is accessible by anyone with an internet connection.

19. There is up to 550 times more public information on the Deep Web than on the Surface Web.

(Source: JEP)

60 of the largest sites on the Deep Web contain forty times more information by the whole Surface Web - 750 TB.

The Deep Web is the highest-growing information category, according to website use statistics.

20. The nefarious section of the Deep Web is called the Dark Web.

(Source: Visual Capitalist)

The Dark Web is considered, as the name implies, the darkest of the family. Users need special access software (the Tor browser, in most cases) to explore even a bit of it.

Among its most “popular” service categories are: Drugs, Fraud, Bitcoin, Black Market Sites, Hacking, Blogs, Pornography, and Abuse. However, the Dark Web is also used for activism, whistleblowing, and free speech, so it’s not all black or white.

Technology Facts and Statistics

Facts about the technological foundation of the internet.

21. Nano-satellites are now set on delivering internet connection to even more remote locations.

(Source: Internet of Business)

The Dutch company Hiber announced their plan to provide IoT-connectivity across the whole planet in the coming years. Their aim is to allow people in less developed countries access internet-enabled devices without issues.

22. Neural network computers will get a lot closer to mimicking humans.

(Source: Science.org)

They’re not going to start smoking cigarettes or sing in the shower, but gadgets will get smarter. Conventional computers are far from adept when it comes to copying our actions, but neural networks can change that. Internet traffic breakdown will look a lot different once these neural nets go online.

23. Both Google and Microsoft are making great progress in quantum computing.

(Source: Forbes)

The main selling point of quantum-powered computers is their speed and power. Using quantum-level mechanics, future machines will perform on an entirely different level compared to today’s devices.

Just a mind-boggling fact, the core of a D-Wave quantum computer operates at -273 degrees Celsius, scarily close to absolute zero temperature.

24. 5G networks еntered the scene in 2020.

(Source: Tech Radar)

Or at least most internet stats and estimates say so. 5G networks, in essence, are way faster than 4G connections. Duh.

The crucial detail lies in just how much faster they are. An ordinary 5G connection would have an average download speed of about 1GBps. Should such connection come to us, the internet will have the needed infrastructure to finally support IoT devices on a mainstream level.

25. Emotionally-driven marketing will be strengthened by AI.

(Source: We Are Social)

High-end AI will provide brands and marketers with a better way to approach and retain customers in virtual markets.

Fun Internet Facts

Wrapping it up with some interesting and funny internet stats.

26. The internet is coordinated by ICANN.

(Source: Lifehacks)

The Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers is responsible for coordinating each unique identifier on the Web. Put simply, they are the ones that ensure your IP is only one and unique.

What sounds entirely more heroic is that seven of their members hold seven keys to “restore” the internet if a gigantic crash should happen.

27. You can still visit the birthplace of the internet.

(Source: Info.Cern)

That’s among the oldest internet statistics you can hear. Tim Berners-Lee began writing the first-ever web browser in September 1990. And the oldest (known) web page (info.cern.ch) was almost finished by Christmas. In January 1991, the World Wide Web became available to the public.

It is exciting to see where it all came to life and to imagine how fast it grew to become the internet we know today.

28. There was a Garfield email service in the 90s.

(Source: Gizmodo)

I’ve reached the pinnacle of my time spent on internet statistics.

Before the official Gmail launch in 2004, Garfield fans could use the initial Gmail service at the following address – gmail.garfield.com. The oldest snapshot from the Garfield platform comes from December 3rd, 1998.

Wrapping up

We went through general facts, Deep Web statistics, monetary numbers, new inventions, and even Garfield. Yet we barely scratched the surface of information about the internet.

1,515,084 new blog posts have been published by the time it took us to finish this piece. The internet is the most extensive library of information ever created, with millions of new entries coming up every day.

Internet statistics shine a light on each aspect of the Web’s past and present. With curiosity, we soak these up as we try to predict what will come to pass. Hopefully, our article has provided some insight into those answers. Till next time!