Website Statistics 2026: How Many Websites Are There?
There were 1,470,435,351 websites in Netcraft's September 2026 web server survey, spread across 323,147,961 domains. Most of them are not real, working sites. Only about 217.6 million were active, or 14.8%, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Netcraft data. There were 411.6 million registered domain names at the end of Q3 2026, according to DNIB.com. WordPress ran 39.5% of all websites in November 2026, according to W3Techs.
Key statistics
- Netcraft received responses from 1,470,435,351 websites in its September 2026 web server survey, according to Netcraft.
- Netcraft classed about 217.6 million websites as active in September 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Netcraft data.
- Only 14.8% of the websites Netcraft found in September 2026 were active sites, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Netcraft data.
- Domain name registrations across all top-level domains reached 411.6 million at the end of Q3 2026, according to DNIB.com.
- WordPress was used by 39.5% of all websites in November 2026, a 58.2% share of sites with a known CMS, according to W3Techs.
How many websites are there
Netcraft surveys the web every month. It counts every hostname that answers a web request, so its total is the closest thing to a full count of websites.
The web passed 1.47 billion websites in September 2026. That is 132.9 million more than a year earlier, a rise of 9.9%. Domains with websites grew faster, by 13.3%, so the growth is not just more subdomains on the same old domains.
The count does not only go up. Netcraft found fewer sites in September 2023 than in September 2016. Big hosts can add or drop tens of millions of hostnames in one month. In September 2026 alone, Google lost 19.1 million sites while the total still rose by 29.8 million. Treat any single month with care and look at the trend.
A "website" here is a hostname, such as shop.example.com. On average each domain held 4.55 of them. That is why the site count is far larger than the number of registered domains. For the software these sites run on, see our web hosting statistics, which covers Netcraft's web server market share figures.
Source: Netcraft Web Server Surveys. Years are not evenly spaced.
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Netcraft received responses from 1,470,435,351 websites in its September 2026 web server survey, according to Netcraft.
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Websites in the Netcraft September 2026 survey sat on 323,147,961 domains, according to Netcraft.
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Netcraft counted 15,463,120 web-facing computers in its September 2026 web server survey, according to Netcraft.
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The number of websites in the Netcraft survey rose by 29.8 million between August and September 2026, according to Netcraft.
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Netcraft found 132.9 million more websites in September 2026 than a year earlier, a rise of 9.9%, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Netcraft data.
How we calculated it: 1,470,435,351 (September 2026) - 1,337,528,194 (September 2025) = 132,907,157. 1,470,435,351 / 1,337,528,194 - 1 = 9.94%.
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Domains with websites in the Netcraft survey grew 13.3% between September 2025 and September 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Netcraft data.
How we calculated it: 323,147,961 (September 2026) / 285,209,235 (September 2025) - 1 = 13.30%.
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Each domain in the Netcraft survey held an average of 4.55 websites (hostnames) in September 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Netcraft data.
How we calculated it: 1,470,435,351 sites / 323,147,961 domains = 4.55.
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Netcraft received responses from 1,337,528,194 websites across 285,209,235 domains in September 2025, according to Netcraft.
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Netcraft received responses from 1,119,023,272 websites across 270,782,860 domains in September 2024, according to Netcraft.
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Netcraft received responses from 1,085,035,470 websites across 254,776,456 domains in September 2023, according to Netcraft.
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Netcraft received responses from 1,188,038,392 websites across 264,360,621 domains in September 2021, according to Netcraft.
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Netcraft received responses from 1,285,759,146 websites and 6,118,785 web-facing computers in September 2016, according to Netcraft.
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The number of websites in the Netcraft survey grew 14.4% between September 2016 and September 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Netcraft data.
How we calculated it: 1,470,435,351 (September 2026) / 1,285,759,146 (September 2016) - 1 = 14.36%.
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The number of websites in the Netcraft survey grew 35.5% between September 2023 and September 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Netcraft data.
How we calculated it: 1,470,435,351 (September 2026) / 1,085,035,470 (September 2023) - 1 = 35.52%.
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Domains with websites in the Netcraft survey grew 22.2% between September 2021 and September 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Netcraft data.
How we calculated it: 323,147,961 (September 2026) / 264,360,621 (September 2021) - 1 = 22.24%.
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Web-facing computers in the Netcraft survey grew 2.5 times between September 2016 and September 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Netcraft data.
How we calculated it: 15,463,120 web-facing computers (September 2026) / 6,118,785 (September 2016) = 2.53.
| Survey | Websites (hostnames) | Domains | Web-facing computers |
|---|---|---|---|
| September 2016 | 1,285,759,146 | n/a | 6,118,785 |
| September 2021 | 1,188,038,392 | 264,360,621 | 11,368,033 |
| September 2023 | 1,085,035,470 | 254,776,456 | 12,274,854 |
| September 2024 | 1,119,023,272 | 270,782,860 | 12,940,670 |
| September 2025 | 1,337,528,194 | 285,209,235 | 13,806,606 |
| September 2026 | 1,470,435,351 | 323,147,961 | 15,463,120 |
How many active websites are there
Many hostnames in the full count are duplicates, parked domains or other machine-generated pages. Netcraft's active-site count is meant to leave these out. It publishes the active-site share for each server vendor, from which the total can be worked out.
About 217.6 million websites were active in September 2026. That is 14.8% of the 1.47 billion hostnames Netcraft found. Roughly six in every seven "websites" are not sites a person would use.
Active sites grow slowly and steadily. The count rose 22.4% in twelve years, from about 177.8 million in 2014. The full hostname count swings far more, because it is driven by hosts that create or drop millions of auto-generated subdomains.
The last year brought the fastest yearly growth we can measure in this series. Active sites grew 8.3% between September 2025 and September 2026, after a dip in 2024. If someone asks how many real websites there are, about 200 million is a fair answer for the last few years.
Source: Netcraft Web Server Surveys. Calculated by StatisticsGlobal. Years are not evenly spaced.
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Netcraft classed about 217.6 million websites as active in September 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Netcraft data.
How we calculated it: Netcraft publishes active-site counts and shares by server vendor, not the total. Cloudflare: 55,639,579 active sites = 25.57%, so total = 55,639,579 / 0.2557 = 217.6 million. nginx (34,649,380 / 15.93%) gives 217.5 million and Apache (26,403,710 / 12.14%) gives 217.5 million.
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Active websites in the Netcraft survey grew 8.3% between September 2025 and September 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Netcraft data.
How we calculated it: September 2026: 55,639,579 / 25.57% = 217.6 million active sites. September 2025: Cloudflare 38,984,570 / 19.41% = 200.8 million. 217.60 / 200.85 - 1 = 8.34%.
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Netcraft classed about 177.8 million websites as active in September 2014, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Netcraft data.
How we calculated it: Active sites table, September 2014: Apache 90,229,153 = 50.74%, so total = 90,229,153 / 0.5074 = 177.8 million. nginx (25,865,132 / 14.54%) gives 177.9 million.
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Active websites in the Netcraft survey grew 22.4% between September 2014 and September 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Netcraft data.
How we calculated it: Active sites implied by vendor counts and shares: 217.6 million (September 2026, Cloudflare 55,639,579 / 25.57%) / 177.8 million (September 2014, Apache 90,229,153 / 50.74%) - 1 = 22.37%.
| Survey | Active websites (millions) | Worked out from |
|---|---|---|
| September 2014 | 177.8 | Apache, 90,229,153 sites = 50.74% |
| September 2016 | 174.1 | Apache, 80,274,070 sites = 46.11% |
| September 2018 | 183.3 | Apache, 70,764,821 sites = 38.61% |
| September 2019 | 188.4 | Apache, 55,548,425 sites = 29.48% |
| September 2021 | 199.5 | Apache, 48,288,904 sites = 24.21% |
| September 2023 | 199.8 | Apache, 40,649,127 sites = 20.35% |
| September 2024 | 193.9 | nginx, 37,814,329 sites = 19.50% |
| September 2025 | 200.8 | Cloudflare, 38,984,570 sites = 19.41% |
| September 2026 | 217.6 | Cloudflare, 55,639,579 sites = 25.57% |
How many domain names are registered
A domain name is not a website. Many domains are held for brand protection, resale or future use and never host a site. DNIB.com, sponsored by Verisign, counts registrations across every top-level domain each quarter.
There were 411.6 million registered domain names at the end of Q3 2026, up 8.7% in a year. Netcraft found websites on 323.1 million domains in the same month. That suggests about 78.5% of registered domains answer with some kind of site. The two sources count different things, so this is a rough ratio, not a precise one.
.com is the default address for a website. It holds 41.3% of all registrations, and W3Techs finds it on 43.6% of the websites in its sample.
For registrars, renewal rates and the largest country-code domains, see our domain name statistics.
Source: DNIB.com, Q3 2026.
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Domain name registrations across all top-level domains reached 411.6 million at the end of Q3 2026, according to DNIB.com.
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Domain name registrations rose by 33.0 million, or 8.7%, in the year to Q3 2026, according to DNIB.com.
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The .com domain had 169.8 million registrations on 30 September 2026, according to DNIB.com.
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Country-code top-level domains had 151.4 million registrations at the end of Q3 2026, according to DNIB.com.
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Netcraft found websites on about 78.5% of registered domain names in September 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Netcraft and DNIB.com data.
How we calculated it: 323,147,961 domains with responding sites (Netcraft, September 2026) / 411.6 million registrations (DNIB.com, 30 September 2026) = 78.5%. The two sources count different things, so treat this as a rough ratio.
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The .com top-level domain was used by 43.6% of all websites in November 2026, according to W3Techs.
| Domain type | Registrations (millions) |
|---|---|
| .com | 169.8 |
| .net | 12.6 |
| Country-code TLDs (such as .cn, .de, .uk) | 151.4 |
| New generic TLDs (such as .xyz, .shop) | 56.6 |
| Other legacy generic TLDs (such as .org, .info) | 21.1 |
| All TLDs | 411.6 |
Websites by CMS (WordPress market share)
A content management system (CMS) is the software used to build and edit a site. W3Techs and HTTP Archive both measure which CMS websites use, with different samples and methods.
WordPress runs 39.5% of all websites and 58.2% of sites with a known CMS. No other system comes close. Shopify is second at 5.3% of all sites, then Wix at 4.2%.
WordPress growth has stalled. Its share rose from 23.3% in January 2015 to a peak of 43.6% in January 2025. It then fell 3.5 points between January and November 2026. Over the same months the share of sites with no tracked CMS jumped from 28.6% to 32.2%. A shift that size in under a year may reflect a change in the W3Techs sample as much as sites leaving WordPress.
The two sources disagree on how many sites use a CMS. W3Techs puts it at 67.8%, HTTP Archive at just over 54% for 2025. HTTP Archive also gives WordPress a larger share of CMS sites, 64.3% against 58.2%. Both agree that CMS use has grown for years and that WordPress leads by a wide margin. More detail is on our WordPress statistics page.
- WordPress
- No CMS
- Shopify
- Wix
Source: W3Techs, historical yearly trends in CMS usage, data to 4 November 2026.
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WordPress was used by 39.5% of all websites in November 2026, a 58.2% share of sites with a known CMS, according to W3Techs.
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About 32.2% of websites used none of the content management systems W3Techs tracks in November 2026, according to W3Techs.
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About 67.8% of websites used a content management system W3Techs tracks in November 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from W3Techs data.
How we calculated it: 100% - 32.2% of websites using none of the tracked CMSs (4 November 2026) = 67.8%.
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Shopify was used by 5.3% of all websites in November 2026, according to W3Techs.
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Wix was used by 4.2% of all websites and Squarespace by 2.4% in November 2026, according to W3Techs.
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WordPress was used by 23.3% of all websites on 1 January 2015, according to W3Techs.
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WordPress use rose 16.2 percentage points between January 2015 and November 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from W3Techs data.
How we calculated it: 39.5% of all websites (4 November 2026) - 23.3% (1 January 2015) = 16.2 points.
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WordPress use fell 3.5 percentage points between January and November 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from W3Techs data.
How we calculated it: 39.5% of all websites (4 November 2026) - 43.0% (1 January 2026) = -3.5 points. Over the same period the share using no tracked CMS rose from 28.6% to 32.2%.
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Shopify use rose from 0.3% of websites in January 2015 to 5.3% in November 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from W3Techs data.
How we calculated it: 5.3% (4 November 2026) - 0.3% (1 January 2015) = 5.0 points.
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Content management systems ran over 54% of the websites HTTP Archive observed in 2025, according to HTTP Archive.
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Content management systems ran 43% of mobile websites in 2021, rising to 54% in 2025, according to HTTP Archive.
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WordPress accounted for 64.3% of mobile CMS usage in 2025, ahead of Shopify at 7.3% and Wix at 5.2%, according to HTTP Archive.
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W3Techs put CMS use in November 2026 13.8 points above the HTTP Archive 2025 figure, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from W3Techs and HTTP Archive data.
How we calculated it: W3Techs: 100% - 32.2% using no tracked CMS = 67.8% (4 November 2026). HTTP Archive: over 54% of observed sites in 2025. 67.8 - 54 = 13.8 points. Different samples, dates and detection tools.
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HTTP Archive gave WordPress a CMS share 6.1 points higher than W3Techs did in 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from HTTP Archive and W3Techs data.
How we calculated it: HTTP Archive: WordPress 64.3% of mobile CMS usage (2025 crawl, published January 2026). W3Techs: 58.2% CMS market share (4 November 2026). 64.3 - 58.2 = 6.1 points.
| CMS | Share of all websites | Share of sites with a known CMS |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress | 39.5% | 58.2% |
| Shopify | 5.3% | 7.9% |
| Wix | 4.2% | 6.1% |
| Squarespace | 2.4% | 3.6% |
| Joomla | 1.1% | 1.6% |
| Drupal | 0.6% | 0.9% |
| No tracked CMS | 32.2% | n/a |
Website languages and HTTPS
W3Techs also records the language each site is written in and the technical features it uses. These show what a typical website looks like in 2026.
Half the web is in English. English is the content language of 49.5% of websites, 8.1 times the share of Spanish in second place. Chinese is on only 1.2% of sites in the W3Techs sample. That sample is built with Chrome UX Report and Tranco ranking data, so it may under-count sites in markets where other browsers and lists dominate.
HTTPS is now standard. It was the default on 26.9% of websites in January 2018 and 90.4% in November 2026, a gain of 63.5 points. Newer protocols are spreading too. HTTP/3 is on 41.2% of sites and IPv6 on 32.2%.
Source: W3Techs, historical yearly trends in site elements, data to 4 November 2026.
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English was the content language of 49.5% of websites in November 2026, according to W3Techs.
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Spanish was the content language of 6.1% of websites and German of 5.9% in November 2026, according to W3Techs.
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English was used on 8.1 times as many websites as Spanish, the next most common language, in November 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from W3Techs data.
How we calculated it: 49.5% (English) / 6.1% (Spanish) = 8.11.
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HTTPS was the default protocol on 90.4% of websites in November 2026, according to W3Techs.
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HTTPS was the default protocol on 26.9% of websites on 1 January 2018, according to W3Techs.
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Default HTTPS use rose 63.5 percentage points between January 2018 and November 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from W3Techs data.
How we calculated it: 90.4% of websites (4 November 2026) - 26.9% (1 January 2018) = 63.5 points.
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HTTP/3 was used by 41.2% of websites and IPv6 by 32.2% in November 2026, according to W3Techs.
| Language | Share of websites |
|---|---|
| English | 49.5% |
| Spanish | 6.1% |
| German | 5.9% |
| Japanese | 4.9% |
| French | 4.6% |
| Portuguese | 4.1% |
| Russian | 3.4% |
| Italian | 2.8% |
How Netcraft, DNIB.com, W3Techs and HTTP Archive count websites
There is no single definition of a website. Netcraft counts hostnames that answer a web request. That includes every subdomain, so one host can create millions of "sites". Its active-site count is meant to leave out duplicates, parked domains and other machine-generated content. Netcraft does not publish the active total directly. We work it out from vendor counts and shares, which agree to within 0.2 million.
DNIB.com counts registered domain names, not websites. Many domains never host a site. It compiles its totals from ZookNIC, Verisign and Centralized Zone Data Service data.
W3Techs surveys well over 20 million sites it judges relevant, using Chrome UX Report and Tranco ranking data. It leaves out sites with no useful content and duplicates, and reports shares, not totals. Its figures update daily, so they can move when the sample changes.
HTTP Archive crawled several million websites in July 2025 for its Web Almanac. That data is older than the other sources and covers a different set of sites. Netcraft has not posted a survey since September 2026, so that is the latest full count. Snapshots of every figure we used are in the CSV files linked from each statistic.
Frequently asked questions
How many websites are there in 2026?
Netcraft received responses from 1,470,435,351 websites in its September 2026 web server survey, across 323,147,961 domains.
How many active websites are there?
Netcraft classed about 217.6 million websites as active in September 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Netcraft data. That is 14.8% of all the sites it found.
How many websites are there compared with last year?
Netcraft found 132.9 million more websites in September 2026 than in September 2025, a rise of 9.9%, calculated by StatisticsGlobal. Active websites grew 8.3%.
Why are there so many more websites than domain names?
Netcraft counts each hostname as a site, and one domain can hold many hostnames. Each domain held an average of 4.55 sites in September 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal. There were 411.6 million registered domain names at the end of Q3 2026, according to DNIB.com.
What share of websites use WordPress?
WordPress was used by 39.5% of all websites in November 2026, a 58.2% share of sites with a known CMS, according to W3Techs. Its share fell 3.5 points between January and November 2026.
What language are most websites in?
English was the content language of 49.5% of websites in November 2026, according to W3Techs. Spanish was second with 6.1% and German third with 5.9%.
Sources
- Netcraft, September 2026 Web Server Survey, 30 September 2026, accessed 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- DNIB.com, The Domain Name Industry Brief Quarterly Report Q3 2026, 2026, accessed 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- W3Techs, Usage statistics of content management systems, updated daily, data for 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- Netcraft, September 2025 Web Server Survey, 30 September 2025, accessed 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- Netcraft, September 2024 Web Server Survey, 17 September 2024, accessed 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- Netcraft, September 2023 Web Server Survey, 29 September 2023, accessed 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- Netcraft, September 2021 Web Server Survey, 28 September 2021, accessed 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- Netcraft, September 2016 Web Server Survey, 18 September 2016, accessed 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- Netcraft, September 2014 Web Server Survey, 23 September 2014, accessed 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- W3Techs, Usage statistics of top level domains for websites, updated daily, data for 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- W3Techs, Historical yearly trends in the usage statistics of content management systems, updated daily, data for 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- HTTP Archive, Web Almanac 2025, Part III Chapter 12: CMS, 15 January 2026, accessed 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- W3Techs, Usage statistics of content languages for websites, updated daily, data for 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- W3Techs, Usage statistics of site elements for websites, updated daily, data for 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- W3Techs, Historical yearly trends in the usage statistics of site elements for websites, updated daily, data for 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
Changes to this page
- : Page published with Netcraft data to September 2026, DNIB.com data for Q3 2026, W3Techs data for 4 November 2026 and HTTP Archive Web Almanac 2025 data.