1.5 MILLION WEB PAGES BORN DAILY ACCORDING TO FINDINGS FROM ALEXA INTERNET
Alexa Internet's 12 terabyte Web archive surfaces exclusive Web trend data
and usage statistics
San Francisco, CA - August 31, 1998 -- How many new Web pages are created
every day? How large is the Internet? Alexa Internet, provider of the free
Web navigation service Alexa, today released statistics on current Web
size, growth and usage determined from data collected through its two-year
archiving efforts. To date, the company has archived 12 terabytes of data
(equivalent to more than half of all the contents stored by the Library of
Congress) and continually analyzes this data to provide Site Statistics and
Related Links for users of the Alexa service, available for free from
http://www.alexa.com. Alexa is the only organization regularly crawling and
archiving the entire public Web and is considered an authority on
full-scale Web analyses.
Some of Alexa's additional recent findings, announced today:
* A current snapshot of the Web is 3 terabytes, or 3 million megabytes;
* The Web doubles in size every 8 months;
* There are approximately 20 million Web content areas;*
* 90% of all Web traffic is spread over 100,000 different host machines;
* 50% of all traffic goes to the top 900 Web sites currently available.
Alexa robots crawl the Web to gather periodic text snapshots (a snapshot is
a full sweep of currently available public Web content) and mines this data
to provide Site Statistics and Related Links to users of the free Alexa
service. Alexa also donates a copy of each snapshot to the non-profit
Internet Archive, which is dedicated to preserving the World Wide Web for
future generations to learn from.
"Alexa's archival efforts mean they've got more to say about the Web in
general than any other Web data providers," said Chris Shipley, industry
analyst and editor of DEMOLetter. "This means businesses and organizations
using Alexa's statistics and trend data are tapping a vast data resource
pulled from the most comprehensive archive of documents 'born digital'--
that is, electronic at conception and through publication --than any
currently available source."
"We have within the Web the largest library of information ever available
to humankind," said Brewster Kahle, president and CEO of Alexa Internet.
"There are millions of unique ideas and perspectives represented on the Web
with few clear modes for access. Alexa's efforts are focused on finding the
most helpful information and making it available to as many Web users as
possible."
Leading Organizations use Alexa Data and Technologies Netscape
Communications, Inc., The White House, Gartner Group and Encyclopaedia
Britannica are among some of the leading organizations that have requested
or are using Alexa data or technologies. Alexa's Related Links service is
integrated into the 'What's Related' feature in Netscape Communicator 4.5
beta version of its browser released July 16. eBLAST, the new Web
navigation service by Encyclopaedia Britannica (www.eblast.com) features
Alexa Site Statistics and Related Links for the more than 125,000 sites
reviewed in its searchable and browsable directory. Premier analyst
organization The Gartner Group, as well as The White House, have called
upon Alexa Internet for data ranging from the number of .com domain names
to the number of Web pages born daily.
Alexa Internet is committed to providing organizations and its users with
the most updated and relevant Web data available. Partnered with
organizations such as TRUSTe, VeriSign, RSACi and PICS, Alexa Internet
serves the public as a trustworthy Web authority and provides useful
information to help Alexa users navigate the Web more efficiently and
effectively.
Surf the Web with a Surf Engine
Since its introduction in October of 1997, over 1/2 million people have
used Alexa to surf the Web smarter, faster and easier and are collectively
viewing over 45 million pages per month. Alexa appears as a toolbar at the
bottom of the users screen and continually communicates with the browser to
provide a constant stream of information about every site on the Web. Key
features include:
* Site Statistics--Alexa shows detailed, objective information about every
site, such as who the site is registered to, how popular the site is, how
many sites link to that site, third party affiliations with privacy
advocates and publishers such RSACi, TRUSTe, VeriSign and Yahoo! Internet
Life;
* Related Links--Alexa gives users the ability to power surf by providing a
list of ten related links for each site they visit. The related links are
based on the usage patterns of all Alexa users;
* Archive of the Web--Alexa provides a solution to the frustrating 404 Not
Found message by serving the most recently archived version of an
unavailable page;
* Desktop Reference--Alexa has integrated a set of desktop reference tools
from Encyclopaedia Britannica, including the Merriam-Webster Online
Dictionary and Thesaurus, Britannica Online and eBLAST.
About Alexa Internet
Founded in April 1996 by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, Alexa Internet
is the leading provider of dynamic, relevant data about the Web to enable
users to make intelligent business and consumer decisions. The company
donates a copy of the Web on an ongoing basis to the non-profit Internet
Archive, which is endowed to preserve our digital heritage for scholarly
access.
The free Alexa Web navigation service is compatible with all Netscape
browsers and Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers versions 3.0 and higher
running on Windows 95 or NT.
Alexa Internet is committed to offering value-added services to Alexa users
and is continually building relationships with leading companies,
publishers and organizations. The company is located on the Web at
http://www.alexa.com, or at 415-561-6900.
*'Content areas' include top-level pages of sites, individual home pages,
and significant subsections of corporate Web sites.
Contacts:
Cynthia Lohr, Alexa Internet, 415-561-6786, cynthia@alexa.com
Jennifer Michalski, Antenna Group Public Relations, 415-977-1911,
jennifer@antennapr.com
