The internet has transformed the world in unexpected and profound ways. Seemingly an omnipresent existence, its complexities and impact can sometimes be seen as difficult to fully comprehend. The internet's scale, with its enormous network of interconnected devices and vast, intricate web of information, can be mind-boggling. It continues to evolve with new protocols and technologies, and the sheer volume and diversity of information are overwhelming. Undoubtedly, the internet has become a platform for influence and power on a global scale; its vastness and decentralized architecture, meaning there is no central authority governing or controlling it, contribute to its enigmatic nature.
The internet remains a dynamic and complex entity; there's a lot of activity on the surface, yet it gets harder to see clearly what lies beneath, and this is where the Deep Web and Dark Web reside. The internet remains puzzling, and these two ideas, which are often used interchangeably but refer to different aspects of the internet, have been conflated in public discussions. If you have ever found yourself confused about the concepts of the Deep Web and the Dark Web, then this article will walk you through understanding the features of each concept. Let's dive in:
The Contrast Between the Dark Web and Deep Web
The indexed web comprises at least 7.42 billion pages as of Friday, May 19, 2023. This projected minimal size of the indexed world wide web is based on the number of pages indexed by the search engines Yahoo, Google, and Bing. But what do indexed web pages have to do with the dark or deep web?
A search engine functions similarly to a librarian, meticulously evaluating and categorizing web content submitted by site owners. These pages, like books in a library, become accessible to all after they are catalogued. When a user conducts a search, the search engine consults the index to identify websites that contain the keywords. Crawling, an automated procedure, is how indexing is done; in contrast, a page that a search engine cannot find is not indexed; consequently, a large portion of the web is not indexed. This part is referred to as the "deep web”. The structure of the internet is the surface web and the deep web, and beneath the deep web lies the dark web.
The Deep Web is a sensitive and private part of the internet where owners of web pages’ gate-keep their content behind paywalls, password-protected websites, or use other methods to prevent them from being found. While the Dark web is a small subset of the deep web that is purposely hidden, constituting a minuscule part of the whole Internet.








