The invisible web is becoming a popular term nowadays and is used to describe the new era of the World Wide Web. The term invisible web refers to World Wide Web content, which is not visible and is not indexed by search engines. This means that there is information and programs out there in the depth of the web, which we are unable to find with regular search engines.

What is Invisible Web?

This term was coined by Mike Bergman many years ago. According to him, the web was like a deep ocean and when we attempt to find something, it is like dragging a net near the surface of this ocean. There is still a wealth of information in the depths of the World Wide Web, which we are unable to reach. A research in 2000 showed that the invisible or deep web has almost 7500 terabytes of data, and that number can even go up to 9100 terabytes. If you compare that with the surface web, which is the visible web that only includes information up to 3000 terabytes. Therefore, there must be a whole world of information out there, which we cannot even reach.

Web 3.0 and Information Invisibility

Experts also believe that web 3.0 has increased the amount of invisible information available online. Web 3.0 is the new era of the World Wide Web, which comes after web 2.0. It is actually a set of technologies, which attempts to change the way information is shared online. The web 3.0 is much smarter and it incorporates all the latest developments in the world of information sharing. For example, the use of artificial intelligence is a great part of the Web 3.0. With the help of artificial intelligence, we will be able to move on to a Semantic Web in which machines will be able to understand human readable language.

As we move on to the Web 3.0, information becomes a lot more dynamic. There are many websites, where new content is generated when users log on and feed in their information, but this information is lost, once the user has logged off. Moreover, information has become more secure online and it is not as easy to retrieve secure data as; it was five years ago. Information that is password protected cannot be retrieved by regular search engines and becomes part of the invisible web.

However, there are many ways you can attempt to retrieve information from the invisible web. Most of us only rely on popular search engines to find information but there are plenty of other ways. You can use a number of free directories, which are available online and offer thousands of links on every topic. There are also many invisible databases, which offer information that might not show up in search engines. A lot of information in the invisible web is maintained by academic institutions so; using academic gateways to explore the web will provide you access to high quality information, which might otherwise be inaccessible.

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