I was recently looking for a chart illustrating the estimated growth of the total number of websites online, while preparing for a series of lectures I’m giving on digital methods (including reviewing cultural and social histories of the web, as well as different ways of doing research both with and about hyperlinks and search engines).

I couldn’t immediately find something suitable, so I just created one using the Datawrapper tool and data compiled by InternetLiveStats.com. I’m sharing here in case useful for anyone else. It is on Datawrapper and image available here. You can read a bit more about methodological issues about counting websites on this page from InternetLiveStats.com, as well as this page from Netcraft, where the more recent data is sourced from. If you have recommendations for articles about website counting methodologies and website statistics, I’d love to hear them.