Netcraft Reports Surge in New Sites

Netcraft:

"In the July 2005 survey we received responses from 67,571,581 sites. The gain of 2.76 million hostnames from June is the second-largest monthly increase in the history of our survey, as 2005 continues to shape up as a historic year for Internet growth. The only larger gain was a 3.3 million hostname increase in March 2003, which ended months of stagnation and kicked off 30 consecutive months of positive growth for the Web. Factors in the dramatic growth include:

• Increasing use of the Internet by small businesses as web sites and online storefronts become more affordable.

• The explosive growth of weblogs, a growing number of which are purchasing domains for branding purposes....