The Deep Web and The Dark Web
Search Engine results account for only 4% of the internet
The internet is a treasure trove of information that merely awaits our command to reveal itself, but this wonderful place hides more than a few secrets of its own. Hidden within the vastness of the internet lies spaces that are not accounted for, that are not indexed and that hold information that is out of the reach of any search engine.
The internet that many of us are familiar with is called the “Surface Web“ or “Lightnet”, and strictly speaking it encompasses anything and everything that can be indexed or found by your typical search engine, like Google. In layman terms it is the part of the internet that is visible or accessible by the general public, hence it is called the “Visible Web”. Surprisingly it only makes up only 4% of the entire internet. The major difference lies in the fact that the surface web only comprises of fixed or static pages, stored on servers. This is why that while changes are being made to such web pages, the pages are temporarily inaccessible as the changes are made and then the updated web page is uploaded to the server for all to use.
The part of the internet that we cannot see, that is not accessible to us via search engines, is the deep web. The deep web contains dynamic pages that are not indexed and hence don’t turn up on search engines. These pages are simply those whose links are not available to Google but that does not mean you can’t access them, in fact every time you navigate away from Google and input a specific search on the website that contains the information you are looking for, you are accessing the deep web.
You can search for a hotel room on Google, it will take to a hotel room on Hotwire website in the place of your choosing, but what Google cannot show you is the price of that hotel room on a certain day, for that you will have to search the Hotwire website itself via its search box. This data hidden behind search boxes and is based on databases that are constantly updated, is the kind of data that makes up the deep web. What is astonishing to know is that 90% of the information on the internet exists on the deep web, it contains (last analyzed) about 7500 Terabytes of information whereas the surface web only contains 19 Terabytes of information.
While the deep web is accessible to those with the tenacity to search deeper than their search engines would take them but a small part of the deep web will forever be out of reach for those who do not possess the right software and don’t know exactly what they are looking for. This small space is known as the “Dark Web” and it comprises of classified web pages that have been intentionally hidden and are inaccessible through standard web browsers. This is the portion of the Internet most widely known for illicit activities because of the anonymity associated with the dark web. The BBC defines the Dark Web as “anonymous, virtually untraceable global networks used by political activists and criminals alike” (Goldberg, BBC).
We are only limited by what we know, and this is the true nature of the internet. The content on the dark web is said to range from transactions of illicit drugs and weaponry to human trafficking, all the while the people behind them remain anonymous.
Behind the deep web holds data of various databases, some that are locked behind pay walls, as they contain privileged information about clients and the surface web that we all know and love, lies a world that most of us can’t even contemplate.
Search Engine results account for only 4% of the internet
The internet is a treasure trove of information that merely awaits our command to reveal itself, but this wonderful place hides more than a few secrets of its own. Hidden within the vastness of the internet lies spaces that are not accounted for, that are not indexed and that hold information that is out of the reach of any search engine.
The internet that many of us are familiar with is called the “Surface Web“ or “Lightnet”, and strictly speaking it encompasses anything and everything that can be indexed or found by your typical search engine, like Google. In layman terms it is the part of the internet that is visible or accessible by the general public, hence it is called the “Visible Web”. Surprisingly it only makes up only 4% of the entire internet. The major difference lies in the fact that the surface web only comprises of fixed or static pages, stored on servers. This is why that while changes are being made to such web pages, the pages are temporarily inaccessible as the changes are made and then the updated web page is uploaded to the server for all to use.
The part of the internet that we cannot see, that is not accessible to us via search engines, is the deep web. The deep web contains dynamic pages that are not indexed and hence don’t turn up on search engines. These pages are simply those whose links are not available to Google but that does not mean you can’t access them, in fact every time you navigate away from Google and input a specific search on the website that contains the information you are looking for, you are accessing the deep web.
You can search for a hotel room on Google, it will take to a hotel room on Hotwire website in the place of your choosing, but what Google cannot show you is the price of that hotel room on a certain day, for that you will have to search the Hotwire website itself via its search box. This data hidden behind search boxes and is based on databases that are constantly updated, is the kind of data that makes up the deep web. What is astonishing to know is that 90% of the information on the internet exists on the deep web, it contains (last analyzed) about 7500 Terabytes of information whereas the surface web only contains 19 Terabytes of information.
While the deep web is accessible to those with the tenacity to search deeper than their search engines would take them but a small part of the deep web will forever be out of reach for those who do not possess the right software and don’t know exactly what they are looking for. This small space is known as the “Dark Web” and it comprises of classified web pages that have been intentionally hidden and are inaccessible through standard web browsers. This is the portion of the Internet most widely known for illicit activities because of the anonymity associated with the dark web. The BBC defines the Dark Web as “anonymous, virtually untraceable global networks used by political activists and criminals alike” (Goldberg, BBC).
We are only limited by what we know, and this is the true nature of the internet. The content on the dark web is said to range from transactions of illicit drugs and weaponry to human trafficking, all the while the people behind them remain anonymous.
Behind the deep web holds data of various databases, some that are locked behind pay walls, as they contain privileged information about clients and the surface web that we all know and love, lies a world that most of us can’t even contemplate.
