The deep web, invisible web or hidden web is the part of the World Wide Web not indexed by search engines.Ĭontent is often hidden by HTTP forms, including email, online banking, private or otherwise restricted social media profiles, web forums that require registration or services that need authentication like Netflix.Ĭontents on the deep web can be located and accessed by direct URL or IP address but may still require a password or other form of authentication to access. In contrast, the deep web is estimated to be anywhere from 400 to 5000 times larger than the surface web. To most of us, Google is synonymous with searching the Internet but in reality Google's index is a small part of the web, known as the surface web. Without indexing, the only way to access a site is to type in the URL or click a link. This is what allows you to ask Google questions or search UpGuard rather than typing in our URL. While this process happens, they save or 'index' each URL to their servers, so they can serve it up to you as part of their search engine results. Google engineers write software called a crawler that clicks on every link on a page, follows the link, and then clicks on all the links on the new page ad infinitum. Google's index is built on the back of a process called crawling. When you type 'UpGuard' into Google and click on, you are searching Google's index of the web, not the entire web.

Search engines work by collecting, parsing and storing data about the pages they visit, enabling every day people fast and accurate information retrieval. Web indexing is best explained through search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo and their high-performance system of indexing. It is the opposite of the deep web, which is the part of the Internet not indexed. The surface web is the portion of the World Wide Web readily accessible and searchable by standard web search engines. The dark web makes up a small part of the deep which, the part of the Internet that is not indexed by search engines.īefore we dive into the details of Tor, how to access the dark web and whether it is safe, let's set the groundwork by understanding the differences between the surface web, deep web and dark web.

One common misconception is the confusion between the dark web and the deep web.

It can only be accessed with an anonymising browser called Tor. The dark web is a criminal infested section of the internet thats inaccessible with conventional search engines.

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