number of documents in the world wide web?

[Jim Campbell]

An article in the current (October, 1995) issue of WebWeek says that Lycos
"has registered more than 7 million URLs" and quotes the Lycos CEO as
saying "We have catalogued more than 90 percent of the Web." If he's right,
this week's answer is between 7 and 8 million documents. Who knows about
next week. Of course, that omits a lot of information to which the Web
provides some sort of gateway.
 
   -  Jim Campbell
 
Networked Information Coordinator       campbell at virginia.edu
University of Virginia Library            Tel: (804) 924-4985
Charlottesville, VA 22903 USA             Fax: (804) 924-1431



        From Laura Guy:

  hello all!
  
  in light of the interesting conversations we've been having
  about web searchers and notions of cataloging the internet
  ive been wondering:
  
  does anyone have a feel for how many documents ARE publically
  accessible via the www?  i guess id mostly be interested in
  html documents (acknowledging of course that web browsers
  access ftp sites and gophers).  its said that harvest 
  idexes 4.2 million, but i dont have a good sense of what
  percentage of the total that is..
  
  ive seen attempts to calculate the 'size' of the internet
  before.  usually these are construed figures based on
  a multiplication of a surveyed set of sites.  but i
  wonder how one would calculate a similar number for
  web sites?
  
  laura guy
  data and program library service
  university of wisconsin-madison
  guy at dpls.dacc.wisc.edu
  

       - from Laura Guy (guy at dpls.dacc.wisc.edu)