Online journals known as blogs and virtual shops for small businesses have pushed the number of websites past the 100-million mark, according to an Internet monitoring firm.
A survey by Britain-based Netcraft determined that the number of websites on the Internet climbed from 97.9 million in October to slightly more than 101 million in November. The 100-million-site milestone 'caps an extraordinary year,' Netcraft concluded.
The number of websites on the Internet has already grown by 27.4 million in 2006, compared with the 17 million sites added in all of 2005, according to Netcraft.
'Blogs and small business websites have driven the explosive growth this year, with huge increases at free blogging services at Google and Microsoft,' Netcraft said in a survey report.
The Internet has doubled in size since a May 2004 Netcraft survey that found 50 million websites. Netcraft's first survey was conducted in August 1995 and showed 18,957 websites.
Website registry firms Go Daddy in the US and One and One Internet in Germany have seen strong demand for low-priced domain names and shared hosting accounts, according to Netcraft.
