According to a monthly Web server survey carried out by Internet services company Netcraft, the Internet has grown by 2.76 million hostnames between June and July 2005. This is the second largest monthly increase recorded by Netcraft, only surpassed by a 3.3 million hostname increase in May 2003 which marked the end of a stagnation phase after the dot com bubble burst.

Interestingly, the following growth factors are identified:

• More small businesses now have a website because they are now more affordable.
• A high growth in the number of blogs, including corporate blogs that are used for branding purposes.
• The purchase of domain names as a speculative investment.
• The ability to generate revenue through contextual pay-per-click advertising on parked domains and commercial blogs.

What does this mean for you? As the Internet is getting more crowded, it’s certainly not getting any easier to attract visitors to your website. As a website owner, you constantly need to make sure that your online marketing strategy places you one step ahead of the competition!

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