h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So, how many? must be Billions, if anyone is clever, send the answer

Well, the google search engine reckons to index just over a billion at the moment, and I'm sure there must be many pages that it can't access.

Certainly, some of the ones in the google index are dead already, but these days you have to take acount of all the ASP-based and other active pages that are made up individually for each reader that won't be indexed. (As an example, the 'page' you're reading this reply on will change every time someone adds their reply).

So, the answer is *probably* billions, but there are possibly many times more that will only have a fleeting existence.

There are billions right here on h2g2... sort of.

Try going to http://www.h2g2.com/U1000000000 and you'll see what I mean.

If you're only counting fixed, rather than dynamically-generated pages... I dunno. Lots. I'd imagine one billion is around about the right order of magnitude...

26199

This post has been removed.

Media Metrix claims only about 15% of all web pages show up on *any* search engine. I would guess we are looking at 10 billion pages or more, based on this.

10 billion! thats almost double the amount of people in the world! jesus, i had know idea

Heh heh. I took a count of my own web pages shortly before I joined h2g2. I had created over 300 of them personally. I have done constructed 12 complete web sites from scratch, included a homepage divided into many sections that have little to do with one another. I suspect it is the prolific people like myself who are largely responsible.

Prolific is one word

I believe the technical word for the number of webpages in the world is:

Lots.