Deep web

The deep web is the part of the World Wide Web that is not findable through search engines. In contrast, the dark web is the part of the Web that is an overlay network that can only be accessed with special software. News and media outlets confuse the terms as the same thing. One example of a dark web is the Tor network. But not all Tor sites are also part of the deep web, since many of them can be found via search engines, both specialized ones, and via Tor2web through regular ones. Public exposure to the deep and dark web remains largely limited to sensationalist reporting, covering, for example, red rooms and snuff films. Unfounded myth and legend continue to seep into popular culture as well.

Content
By 2013, with the shut-down all over the news, the term "Deep Web" embedded itself into mass consciousness as this dark scary thing out there. While it is true that there are drug and illegal markets on the darkweb, as illustrated in deep dot web's top drug-markets list for example, this is also true for the clearnet:

And besides, the normal Internet already hosts loads of child porn, and is where human trafficking definitely takes place. [...] As long as people are obsessed with finding the next terrible thing on the dark web, these scam and troll sites are going to continue—feeding the exaggerated myth of what ultimately boils down to just a small collection of websites.

But so long as general media keep covering alleged drug busts and other criminal activities on the darkweb, the fallacious legend will live on.

Garbage
An accurate portrayal of Hidden Service content distribution can be found on Wikipedia for February 2016. The table can be observed on the right.

Note that the the category "None" contains nearly half of Hidden Service content. This makes more sense if you just check out Deep Web in a Nutshell covered below. Also note that the table does not specify whether or not the illegal services are actually legitimate. Not to mention, the multiple HiddenWiki clones exist to filter out the garbage and present interesting content. In other words, it's not the same thing as a web crawler which scavenges Onionland.

Deep web in a nutshell
Why visit lots of dodgy onion sites on the "dark" web, when you can enjoy being bored out of your wits here on this site in perfect safety? Authentic feelings of disappointment guaranteed, or your money back!



Released in May 2015, 'the Deep Web in a nutshell' presents a far more accurate depiction of services that can actually be found.


 * The abandoned forum — The best board is "I have made a nice forum, but nobody is here".
 * This site is hosted — Expect to see a lot of sites with only this text!
 * The weird website with an obnoxious picture

Size
As of September 14th, 2016, harry71's onion crawler has archived a whopping total of over 6,000 onion websites. That's a pretty small number compared to worldwidewebsize.com's estimate of "at least 4.7 billion pages" as of September 14th, 2016. But in reality, if such a dark web were to exist, it would contain a rather small community to begin with considering its supposed barriers. Therefore, the darknet would be very small in size of pages to coincide with the size of the audience; definitely not (the method by which this figure was developed is a trade secret).

Deep web "levels"
An infamous infographic was created in 2011 or early 2012. At the time Tor and the Silk Road first gained popularity and crucially at the same time the deep web search term started to be conflated with the dark web. It helped feed the sensationalism and further imprint into the public’s minds what exactly the darknet was.

The concept of such 'levels' of the deep web was produced by an enterprising individual, sharing similarities with in its structure. In this (mis)infographic, the further down, the more insane and preposterous the content becomes. A January 2012 attempt at a corresponding corrected infographic was also created, but never gained comparable popularity due to reliance of text and facts.

The infographic also perpetuates the fallacy that non-clearnet content somehow makes up most of the Internet.

Level 2 Web — Bergie web
Proxy required after this point...

The dark web proper begins below.

Level 3 Web — Deep web
Tor required after this point...

Level 4 Web — Charter web
Closed Shell System required after this point...

80% of the Internet exists below this line...

Polymeric falcighol derivation exists below this line...

Level 5 Web — Marianas web
But wait, there's more! Some time around December 2014 an update to the infographic was created.

PC World Meet Darknet, the hidden, anonymous underbelly of the searchable Web
In all fairness, this article does a better job compared to most websites by showing the positives and negatives of onionland. In addition, it recommend the reader to take security precautions. However, it focuses too much on illegal activity and makes several errors:

Why people believe this bullshit
The mythos behind the deep web draws parallels to the Atlantis myth. In both cases, the subjects' portrayal takes advantage of human curiosity and wonderment. Even if there is little to no actual evidence that points to a certain conclusion, evidence to support people's opinions is conjured through unrelated "evidence" or entirely falsified to sell stories. As for the latter, people look at stories from news authorities and assume the content and themes presented in said stories must be true.

Stories about Silk Road introduced the connotation that the Tor Network and other anonymous networks like I2P are mainly for illegal purposes. Now that this connotation has been initiated, people believe it and start their own Hidden Services and Youtube videos to prolong it. Hidden services have the security advantage of having end-to-end encryption for web browsing and Tor Browser has great security features; it's disappointing that the Tor Project's name is tarnished by stories related to Silk Road and urban legends.