What's the Difference Between the 'Surface Web' and the 'Deep Web'?
In 2024, the world wide web was made up of 149 zettabytes of data. That's 149 trillion gigabytes, or 149 billion terabytes—whichever helps you wrap your head around that gigantic number. Suffice it to say, the internet is a big place. It's so big, in fact, that you can't access all of it the same way. There are actually different tiers to the web, and depending on with tier a piece of content you're looking for is on, you may or may not be able to view it—even if you know where to find it.
That's the crux of the difference between the "surface" web, and the "deep" web. These are two separate parts of the internet that are also part of the larger world wide web. While these two tiers are quite different, you've visited content on both of them before. In fact, you likely visited both surface web pages and deep web pages today, multiple times, without ever realizing it.
What is the surface web?
The surface web, also known as the visible web, is really true to its name: This is the part of the web you can easily access through search engines, as they are indexed by platforms like Google. As a rule of thumb, if you can google it, it's on the surface web. The article you're reading right now is on the surface web, for example. Maybe you found it by searching "difference between surface web and deep web" on Google. The same applies to Lifehacker as a whole, as well as articles on websites like Mashable, CNET, and PCMag.
You likely spend a good amount of your internet time on the surface web, on websites both old and new. Forums like Reddit are largely fully represented on the surface web, as are some Instagram pages. Listings for products you can buy on websites like Amazon and Best Buy are surface web pages. Video platforms like YouTube are very much the surface web, including TikTok—though the experience for the latter is not optimized for web browsers. Legacy websites like AddictingGames (which is still playable in 2026), as well as the site for the 1996 movie Space Jam are the surface web. A lot of the surface web is made of up individual articles, which makes sense, since articles still make up a large amount of search engine results.
Like the surface of the ocean, the surface web is just a fraction of the internet as a whole. Back in 2017, some estimates claimed the surface web made up just 10% of the entire internet. That's still a huge number of websites, which tells you how big the overall web really is.
What is the deep web?
If the surface web is everything you can find via Google, the deep web is everything you can't. The deep web is much larger than the surface web, and is compromised of websites that are not readily accessible from search engines or direct URLs. They're often locked away behind authentication. That means you need at least a username and password to access them, and in many cases, they require an additional form of authentication as well. The article you're reading is on the surface web, but the software (content management system, or CMS) we use to write and publish the article is not—our CMS is still a website, but it's not something you can find in a Google search, and even if you knew the direct URL, you wouldn't have access.
It's the same with the many sites you access that only you have permission to view. Think about something like Gmail: The service's homepage is accessible to everyone, and it's something that pops up when searching "Gmail," but to access your Gmail inbox, you need to log in. Once you do, your inbox is accessible via the website, but it's not like anyone can see it with a URL, and they certainly can't find your inbox from a Google search. It's the same story with your Facebook feed, YouTube account, or your banking information. These are all accessible in your web browser as websites, but you need to log in to view them.
That's also the case for services and subscriptions. Think about stuff like Netflix, Hulu, or HBO: These are all accessible in your web browser, which means you're streaming the content on individual web pages. But the players on those web pages cannot be accessed from Google, even if the landing pages for a particular show or movie can be. In order to actually watch or listen to the content, you need to sign into your account. That's not the case with all streaming services, of course: Happy Gilmore on Tubi is a surface web page, since it's indexed on Google. Some of the deep web is also made up of pages you'll never see, such as protocols for identifying user accounts and running payments behind the scenes. It's not all paywalled content.
What about the dark web?
Maybe you've also heard about the dark web, but don't quite know what it is. As such, you might conflate the deep web and the dark web, but the two are not identical. In fact, the dark web is a part of the deep web; it's just the part you can't access with a traditional web browser. In order to access the dark web, you need a specialized browser, like Tor, and knowledge of the unique dark web URLs, which typically end in .onion instead of .com or .org. For more information on the differences between the dark web and the deep web, check out my explainer here.