Chicago (IL) - There is no slowdown in sight : The Internet keeps growing at an accelerated pace, adding 20.4 million new sites in the first half of this year, according to web analysis firm Netcraft. In June alone, the net grew by 3.62 million sites and stood at 125,626,329 at the beginning of this month.

Microsoft is gaining more and more ground on Apache as the preferred web server software provider. Microsoft added 2.4 million sites in June, bringing its total to more than 40 million for the first time. The firm’s market share is now estimated at 32.8%. Apache added only 556,000 sites and saw its market share slip by 1.1% to 52.7%. Excluding inactive sites, Apache now runs on 50.0% of sites, less than 14.5% ahead of Microsoft. The distance between the two companies was more than 33.4% in July 2006.

Thanks to Blogger, Google is the platform that currently enjoys the fastest growth : According to Netcraft, Google added 592,000 sites in June and now has a 4.32% market share.