The Deep Web

In short
The deep web is the whole part of the web that search engines do not index: email, bank accounts, password-protected archives, paywalled content. It is huge and almost entirely legal and boring. The dark web is a small part of it, reachable only with software such as Tor, where alongside legitimate uses there are illegal markets. The famous “levels” below the dark web, like the Marianas web, are legends.

The deep web is the part of the web that stays “hidden” or “submerged”, as opposed to the surface web, the one we all know and find on Google. It should not be confused with the dark web, which is only a small part of it and is very different.

Both can be reached with completely legal tools (the dark web, for example, with the Tor software), but on the dark web some of the services offered are illegal: weapons, drugs, fake documents and, sadly, child sexual abuse material.

Origin of the deep web

The term deep web was coined in 2001 by computer scientist Michael K. Bergman, who compared the internet to a huge ocean made of layers: on the surface is what search engines can “fish out”, and underneath is everything else.

A few years later the term “dark web” also appeared. Even today the two expressions are often confused and used as if they meant the same thing, but they do not.

Infographics circulate online that divide the internet into many levels, shaped like an iceberg:

common web
surface web
bergie web
deep web
charter web
Marianas web

So are there really six levels to the internet? After a little research it is easy to conclude that the first two are practically the same thing and the last two are pure fantasy.

The surface web

This is the web we all know, made of sites indexed by Google and easy to find. Some of these sites may have macabre or uncensored content (porn, accidents, violent deaths), but you need no special tool to access them.

Sites like Reddit or 4chan also belong to the surface, because you can reach them through Google.

The deep web is everything search engines do not index. And surprise: it is by far the biggest part of the internet, and it is almost all legal and rather boring. It includes your email inbox, your online bank account, documents stored in the cloud, private social media profiles, forums you have to register for, streaming services and paywalled newspapers.

You go there every day without knowing it: all it takes is a direct address, a password or a subscription. The so-called “bergie web” of the infographics, meaning sites that do not show up on Google but can be reached if you know the link, is in fact simply deep web.

The dark web

The dark web is a tiny part of the deep web, accessible only with specific software, such as Tor, that hides the identity of both users and site operators. It is made up of so-called darknets.

Not everything there is illegal: Tor is also used by journalists, activists and people living in countries where the internet is censored. But this is where the internet’s black markets are found, selling drugs, weapons, fake documents and stolen credit card data, and where terrible content circulates, such as child sexual abuse material and videos of real violence, like the alleged snuff movies.

Silk Road, for example, was a site similar to eBay, launched in 2011, where you could buy illegal products paying in bitcoin. It was the first modern darknet market. In 2013 the FBI shut it down and arrested its founder, Ross Ulbricht, who in 2015 was sentenced to two life terms. In 2025, however, Ulbricht was pardoned by President Donald Trump.

The Marianas web and the other levels

All the levels that, according to some infographics, lie below the dark web (some count as many as 18) belong to the realm of pure fantasy and urban legend.

There is, for example, the mythical “Marianas web” which, according to some, contains 80% of all the information on the internet. According to unverifiable rumours, this abyss of the web holds government secrets, “forbidden” documents and answers to humanity’s oldest questions. Like a modern oracle, the Marianas web could enlighten us about secrets and, why not, the meaning of life.

Why you should not visit the dark web

With all the forbidden things on the dark web, someone is bound to be curious enough to try going there. For anyone with average computer skills it is not even that hard. You could go, but the question is: is it worth it?

The forbidden always holds a certain fascination for our curiosity, but in this case it is better to let it go.

On the dark web there are not “only” illegal sites and ads, but also the people willing to create and consume certain content. They are certainly not saints.

But morals aside, what can happen to you goes beyond seeing something too shocking. Scams are everywhere, and people on those sites can easily steal your data and use it for illegal (and dangerous) business. Not to mention that downloading or keeping illegal material such as child sexual abuse content is a very serious crime, and if something like that ends up on your computer, good luck explaining to the police knocking at your door that you were not looking for it.

So a word of advice is in order: unless you are a criminal, a professional hacker or a champion of justice, avoid venturing outside the “known” parts of the internet.

Nietzsche put it prophetically, long before any of this: if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

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