Long description of the graphical timeline spanning 1994-2023

The graphical timeline was created for the 30 April 2023 W3C Blog post celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Web being in the public domain, and is available in PDF and PNG.

timeline showing W3C technologies that have had particular impact on the Web, showing websites and product launches that put the web into perspective, showing the number of websites and internet users every 5 years

The timeline spans 1994 to 2023 and shows 4 layers:

Top: Organizational highlights
Chronology of when selected work started or web standards were reached, that made the Web the great platform it is today
The number of websites and Internet users every 5 years
Bottom: Chronology of when selected websites or services were launched. That layer ends with select statistics from the Covid-19 pandemic.

First layer (top): W3C organizational highlights

1994: Creation of W3C
2004: W3C 10th anniversary
2014: W3C 20th anniversay
2023: Creation of W3C Inc.

Second layer: selected W3C milestones that made the Web so essential and usable

Between October 1995 and April 2023, W3C published over 11,000 specifications, of which more than 470 are W3C Recommendations (Web Standards). The timeline lists the W3C achievements listed and described in the W3C Blog post

Third layer: number of websites and Internet users

1995: 23,500 websites, 45M users
2000: 17,100,000 websites, 141M users
2005: 64,800.00 websites, 1.03B users
2010: 207,000,000 websites, 2.04B users
2015: 863,000,000 websites, 3.1B users
2020: 1.75B websites, 4.5B users
2022: 2B websites, 5.2B users

Fourth layer (bottom): other sites and services

Chronology of the launch of select websites or services, to put some industry context:

1994: Yahoo!
1995: Amazon, Altavista
1997: Netflix, Yandex
1998: Google
1999: Paypal
2000: Baidu
2001: Wikipedia
2003: WordPress, LinkedIn, MySpace
2004: Facebook, Flickr
2005: Youtube, Reddit
2006: Twitter
2007: Tumblr, Netflix streaming
2008: Dropbox
2010: Pinterest, Instagram
2011: Zoom
2012: Oculus VR, Google Play
2014: Apple CarPlay
2016: Mastodon, TikTok
2018: GDPR
2020: The Coronavirus pandemic caused surges in Internet traffic (+40%), Web conferencing (+300%), Video on demand (+100-200%) and Gaming (+300%)

The graphic is copyrighted W3C and was last revised on 2023-04-25.

Corale Mercier, Head of W3C Marketing & Communications
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