Internet Growth in 2005 Sets Record

miller60 writes "Netcraft's Web Server Survey reports that a large gain in web sites in October makes 2005 the strongest year ever for Internet growth. The web has added 17.5 million sites so far this year, eclipsing the previous annual best of 16 million during the dot-com boom in 2000. And that's with two months left in the year. Is this growth for real? Web hosts targeting the small business market (like Yahoo Small Business and Go Daddy) report that business is booming, suggesting that web-wary local businesses are finally going online. But some of the the growth is likely due to domain name business models, with speculators buying large numbers of domain and placing advertising on them."

Time to drag out this old chestnut:

[This Old Chestnut]

"You can shovel more shit on the pile, but in the end you still just have a pile of shit."

- Martin Luther, circa 1542

I'll be the first to say whoopty-do

[theantipop]

Of the 17.5 million new sites, 17.3 million are blogs about the sad life of a suburban middle-class teenager.

Not so impressive

[Uukrul]

The web has added 17.5 million sites so far this year

Viagra: Results 1 - 10 of about 12,800,000 for viagra . (0.07 seconds)

So 17.5 million - 12.8 viagra webs = 5.3 million

Texas Hold'em up [google.com]: 3,720,000
5.3 million - 3.7 Texas hold'em up = 1.6 million.

So may be there are a lot of new webs, but if there are spam who cares?

Cost

[op12]

The price of domains has gotten so low, that it's not all that surprising that this is the case. I think godaddy's got domains at just $2 now. I think it was something like $8 just 2 years ago.

The debate is over..

[modi123]

The UN/EU [slashdot.org] can have the stink'n internet if they want. Clearly from this article indicates the strangle hold the US has over the internet is stifling innovation, commerce, and the participation of a larger community. If one country controlling the DNS servers can do this poorly, then having a whole BUNCH of nations controlling it would increase the grandeur of the 'net. What would be fun if this broke down the increase in sites per country, sites still existing per country, and sites lost by country. Yup that would show'm. Darn US and their broken system. Free it up and it might work right, people might sign on more, and businesses might join the online community.

Sorry to bleed over topics...

Not nearly as impressive

[manifoldronin]

Wait until the UN takes over!!

What kinds of sites thou

[Anonymous Coward]

Well with the rate the spammer/scammer/moronic address staker ads companies,

I AM NOT SURPRISE AT ALL.

Nearly all the even-moderately popular sites have their pseudo-address-name ad sites.