The Internet reportedly just passed a major landmark

There are now over 1 billion websites. In 1991 there was only one

Published September 17, 2014 2:00PM (EDT)

  (Maksym Dykha/Shutterstock)
(Maksym Dykha/Shutterstock)

There are now over 1 billion websites -- and counting -- according to the real-time Internet tracking site Internet Live Stats.

The site, which tracks Web activity including number of Internet users, Google searches and tweets sent, predicted that the number would cross 1 billion by the end of 2014; however, it has already surged beyond that number in September.

The World Wide Web was invented by the British physicist Tim Berners-Lee in March of 1989 -- the 25th anniversary of the Internet was celebrated earlier this year. While working at CERN in Switzerland, Berners-Lee published the first website on Aug. 6, 1991.

On Tuesday, he sent out this tweet in recognition of passing the 1 billion website milestone:

[embedtweet id="511988109211627520"]

To add some perspective to this incredible milestone, in August of 1991 there was only one website, according to a chart by NetCraft and Internet Live Stats. That was only 23 years ago. In 1992, there were only 10 websites. By 2013 there were more than 600 million.

Some of the ubiquitous websites that we traverse today -- Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Tumblr, Pinterest, DropBox -- sprung up in the last decade.

In terms of Internet users, global users is nearing the 3 billion mark, according to Internet Live Stats. "Around 40 percent of the world population has an internet connection today (view all on a page )," Internet Live Stats stated. "In 1995, it was less than 1 percent." As of the first of July, Asia accounted for 48.4 percent of the world's Internet use.

You can watch the incredible growth of the Internet here, at Internet Live Stats.

h/t Agence France-Presse


By Sarah Gray

Sarah Gray is an assistant editor at Salon, focusing on innovation. Follow @sarahhhgray or email sgray@salon.com.

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