# How many web sites could there be

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-web-sites-could-there-be/808951>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 16, 2018, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-web-sites-could-there-be/808951 "2018-02-16T20:27:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![busterpickle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@busterpickle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/busterpickle)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-web-sites-could-there-be/808951/21 "2018-02-17T05:22:41Z")

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> [@Ashtura](#):
>
> Depends on what you define as a “website”. A “website” as commonly understood (single domain), that isn’t cloud-based and publicly accessible…

Define “isn’t cloud based”. If you mean every website resides on its own, dedicated metal box, I would have to disagree. That would eliminate many websites known as blogs, and many SOHO.

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**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-web-sites-could-there-be/808951/22 "2018-02-17T06:34:54Z")

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> [@markn\_1](#):
>
> That only limits the number of web sites (or “devices” as you say). Each site can host as many pages as it wishes.
> 
> Most browsers limit the length of a URL. IE is something like 2000 characters. That imposes a limit of N[sup]2000[/sup], where N is the number of allowed characters in a URL. I think N is about 75, the 62 alphanumerics plus about a dozen others. But this is a pretty soft limit since different browsers have different length restrictions and it could be easily increased in a browser update.

Uhhh… yeah. I’ve run into that limit with my GIS web site. There is a way to use a proxy page to get around the 2000 char limit. Please don’t ask me how to do it, because I really don’t understand it.

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-web-sites-could-there-be/808951/23 "2018-02-17T15:06:55Z")

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Heck, most websites are cloud-based, nowadays. Do you really think that the SDMB resides on a box somewhere in Chicago Reader headquarters in Illinois? They contract that out to a hosting company who puts it in their own box, and who knows where that box is? It could be anywhere, and they sometimes move it to a new box as our needs change (they last did this a couple of weeks ago, and nobody even noticed when it happened).

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