Surface & deep web

Surface web

Surface web is the first layer of the internet. Simply said, surface web is everything that doesn't require any form of authorization, is indexed in search engines and accessible through normal web browser like Google Chrome. For example, this page is part of the surface web. From what I've said above, it must be obvious that surface web contains millions of pages. And it does. However, the entire surface web is only 4 % of the internet overall content. Otherwise, this layer is nothing special.

Deep web

Things are getting interesting now, as we advance to deep web. This layer makes up the vast majority of internet content (96 %). Pages on deep web are not indexed in search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. and you need some sort of access data to get there. This can be for example name and password or URL address for private content. So, deep web includes things like e-mail inboxes, bank accounts, online file storages, private forums, medical reports etc. So everytime you are scrolling through your Gmail you are using deep web. Simple, right? But this is not everything that deep web can offer. There is one part of the deep web which cannot be accessed through normal internet browser, and is therefore hidden from most internet users. This part is called the dark web.