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Browser Statistics
Link Rot
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The Web suffers from link rot, links becoming broken because of the continual disappearance or relocation of Web resources over time. The ephemeral nature of the Web has prompted many efforts to archive the Web. The Internet Archive is one of the most well-known efforts; they have been archiving the Web since 1996.
Ultimately, link rot is the price paid for the World Wide Web; the web's scale and infrastructure make it impossible to monitor all hyperlinks in real time, and there is no broadcast notification when a page is removed or renamed. Allowing links between independently maintained resources carries the inherent danger that some of the links will be invalidated over time.
Readability
- 79% of users always scan; only 16% read word-by-word
- Reading from computer screens is 25% slower than from paper
- Web content should be 50% the size of its paper equivalent
- White Papers re-written according to these guidelines have shown significant improvements in all metrics:
Task Time: 180% faster
User Error: 809% fewer
Memory: 100% more
Subjective satisfaction: 37% higher
Overall usability: 159% better
Size
- According to a 2001 study[3], there were more than 550 billion documents on the Web, mostly in the "invisible Web".
- A 2002 survey of 2,024 million Web pages[4] determined that by far the most Web content was in English: 56.4%; next were pages in German (7.7%), French (5.6%) and Japanese (4.9%).
- A more recent study which used web searches in 75 different languages to sample the Web determined that there were over 11.5 billion web pages in the publicly indexable Web as of January 2005.
- There are over 32 million domains.
Other Facts & Useful Links
- America's Most Wired Cities - Internet Industry Almanac
- Bandwidth Speed Test (1)
- Bandwidth Speed Test (2)
- BUBL - Catalogue of Internet Resources
- CyberAtlas - The Web Marketer's Guide to Online Facts
- eMarketer - "World's Leading Provider of Internet Statistics"
- Forrester Research - "Forrester is a leading independent research firm that analyzes the future of technology change and its impact on businesses, consumers, and society."
- How Much Information - "This study is an attempt to measure how much information is produced in the world each year. We look at several media and estimate yearly production, accumulated stock, rates of growth, and other variables of interest."
- Internet Current Trends
- Internet Domain Survey - "The Domain Survey attempts to discover every host on the Internet by doing a complete search of the Domain Name System."
- Internet Traffic Report - "The Internet Traffic Report monitors the flow of data around the world."
- NetFactual.com - "NetFactual information is compiled from the facts. It's information is about the Internet compiled from the Internet to provide actionable information at your fingertips."
- Nielsen NetRatings - "Gives marketers a clear picture of city-specific Internet trends and behavior. Reports include audience site traffic, average time spent per person, and demographics for the top 20 designated market areas."
- StatMarket - Real Time Internet Usage by Browser, Operating System, Domain, etc.
- Statistics Toolbox - CyberAtlas
- WWW User Survey - Georgia Institute of Technology
- Web Characterization Project - "The Web Characterization Project conducts an annual Web sample to analyze trends in the size and content of the Web. Analysis." Information here represents the aggregate picture of millions of web surfers compiled from thousands of web sites of all types and sizes."
- Yahoo Internet Stats & Demographics