Friday, July 25th, 2008 by Andy Beal

22

1,000,000,000,000

I just had to publish a post that I could title “1,000,000,000,000″ (1 trillion) and Google gives me the perfect opportunity with news that its spiders have discovered that many web pages.

The first Google index in 1998 already had 26 million pages, and by 2000 the Google index reached the one billion mark. Over the last eight years, we’ve seen a lot of big numbers about how much content is really out there. Recently, even our search engineers stopped in awe about just how big the web is these days — when our systems that process links on the web to find new content hit a milestone: 1 trillion (as in 1,000,000,000,000) unique URLs on the web at once!

Google stopped displaying the size of its search index at around the 30 billion mark–which prevented a “mine is bigger than yours” tussle with Yahoo. While 1 trillion is an impressive number, keep in mind that this is not actually the size of Google’s current index.

We don’t index every one of those trillion pages — many of them are similar to each other, or represent auto-generated content similar to the calendar example that isn’t very useful to searchers.

Still, 1 trillion is a big number. Need a comparison? 1 trillion is the current price for a barrel of oil!!!! :-P


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22 comments on “1,000,000,000,000”

  1. graywolf Says:

    July 25th, 2008 at 3:45 pm

    wonder if they know most of those 1 trillion sites are similar to each other because they have google adsense on them … oh was I not supposed to point that out ;-)

    graywolf’s last blog post..SEO Haters: Misconceptions and Misinformation

  2. Bloggeries Says:

    July 25th, 2008 at 3:46 pm

    What a number that is; the growth of the internet is insane. I’m just glad to be part of the wave.

    P.S I hope I answered that spam protection correctly it really had me thinking.

  3. Andy Beal Says:

    July 25th, 2008 at 3:48 pm

    @graywolf – dude, you do know there’s a PR update coming, don’t you? You need to keep quiet! ;-)

    @Bloggeries – looks like your basic math didn’t fail you! :-)

  4. Travis Wright Says:

    July 25th, 2008 at 3:48 pm

    Very Nice. Wow, that is one expensive barrel of oil. I admit, I chuckled out loud.

    Good stuff.

    Have a great weekend.

  5. Samir Says:

    July 25th, 2008 at 3:54 pm

    haha I love the oil reference. Have a good weekend!

    Samir’s last blog post..Is “The Internet” Nice? – A Social Movement

  6. Prevential Says:

    July 25th, 2008 at 4:03 pm

    I wonder how many of those 1,000,000,000,000 are duplicate content.

    @Andy: I love the oil reference.

    Prevential’s last blog post..The Two Differences Between Reputation Management and Search Engine Optimization

  7. Zak Nicola Says:

    July 25th, 2008 at 4:07 pm

    I think the the .me sale helped that number. As for the oil price, I think I need to start looking at my choice of career path, who pays a tril for SEO? haha

    Zak Nicola’s last blog post..Making Plurk Clique

  8. Dean Says:

    July 25th, 2008 at 4:44 pm

    What they fail to point out is that the number of web pages drops to 46,129 if you exclude those that include paparazzi shots of Britney, Paris, and Lindsay Lohan.

  9. Keegy United States - 1,000,000,000,000 Says:

    July 25th, 2008 at 5:01 pm

    [...] 1,000,000,000,000 [...]

  10. Erik Says:

    July 25th, 2008 at 5:35 pm

    Wow,

    Let’s see how long it takes to get you to the top for that search.

    Pretty nuts that there are that many pages out there.

    Erik’s last blog post..Wordpress User Video Upload Script as a PHP Consultant

  11. Fifty Studio Says:

    July 25th, 2008 at 7:07 pm

    @graywolf

    LOL.

    I wonder how many of those indexed pages are blog farms? Blogspot itself shows 330,000,000

  12. Patrick Says:

    July 25th, 2008 at 10:51 pm

    Yeay, there will be PR update soon. By the way this is an interesting facts knowing that there are so many pages indexed in Google itself. Now, it is 1 trillion, is there a 1 zillion? what about 1 goooooogle?

  13. Utah SEO Pro Says:

    July 26th, 2008 at 12:06 am

    I could see this confusing a lot of business owners.

    Utah SEO Pro’s last blog post..Advanced Keyword Research for SEO

  14. Nick Stamoulis Says:

    July 26th, 2008 at 10:10 am

    Wow this is truly amazing info. What will that number be 10 years from now?

  15. Nicole Price Says:

    July 26th, 2008 at 10:17 am

    Nothing in history has ever achieved this size. Just imagine what kind of a world that we are living in. What next?

    Nicole Price’s last blog post..Green Gifts

  16. Warenwirtschaft Says:

    July 26th, 2008 at 10:19 am

    This is an amazing number of indexed sites. It would be interesting how many pages they have actually indexed. How many pages does google think are worth it.
    And how many pages have actually been seen by humans other than the author?

  17. Top Rated Digital Says:

    July 27th, 2008 at 12:11 am

    I’ve hear of a few BlackHats that create that many pages in a weekend. No biggie ;)

    Top Rated Digital’s last blog post..What’s The Top Rated Canon Digital Camera?

  18. Ruben Zevallos Jr. Says:

    July 27th, 2008 at 11:38 am

    Wow, it’s a very big number…

  19. SEO I-COM Says:

    July 28th, 2008 at 9:15 am

    That’s quite insane. How do they manage to index so many pages!…

  20. nile Says:

    July 28th, 2008 at 12:41 pm

    Its Goooooooooooogle Keep it up G….

  21. warez Says:

    December 16th, 2008 at 3:42 pm

    1 trillion :)

  22. Bali villas Says:

    December 20th, 2008 at 10:29 pm

    such a curious title…