November 2000

Update: Israel

Due to unavailability of the file with the list of domains registered under the ccTLD IL we made an effort to get the number of domain names registered each month in Israel in the different categories.

This enabled us to calculate an estimate of the number of Web sites for each one of these domain names categories.

The only signficant observation resulting is the extraordinary growth both of the domain names and the Web sites in the categories co.il and org.il.

Since January the number of domain names under co.il grew by 197% and those registered under org.il by 187% . In all other categories the growth has been marginal. See sections 3 and 4 below.

These findings do not change our estimates from the last report regarding the ESIS categories for Web sites – they do not include commercial site were most of the increase has taken place:

Regional and Local Authorities: Almost all have now a Web site available due to a project carried out by the Union of Local Authorities in Israel; these sites include information on the Mayor; a Bulletin Board; General Information; History; Community Services; the Municipality; Education, Culture and Sport; Tourism; Commerce and Industry; Development Programs; Twin Cities.

The number of Government sites expanded although this doesn’t receive due weight in the number of Ministries presented in the table. However some expressions of increased government access can be obtained from the huge number of users of the Ministry of Finances Web upon the announcement of a deep Tax Reform; the establishment of direct access by the Israel Land Authority to all land related regulations and registries; the establishment of a Web site for the Police and the intensive publicity campaign announcing it and the services available.

Most significant developments can be found in the area of commercial portals: the establishment of the MSN Israel Portal and the massive expansion of Internet Portals by the main newspapers: the Yedioth Aharonot YNET; the Markers.Com economic portal established by Haaretz. This in addition to the established main services like Walla; Nana; Tapuz and more.

2. Israeli Web Sites by ESIS Categories

(1) The number of educational institutions is from the site of the program for educational networking of the Ministry of Education http://www.kishurim.k12.il David Carmi, the Marketing Director of Kishurim provided updated figures: 1008 schools connected, 85% of them by a fixed direct connection (Frame Relay) and the remaining either by ISDN to LAN (10) or by dial up. He claims that among them 200 schools have established Web sites using the EduWeb system developed by Kishurim. We get an estimate of the Web sites for schools (560) by adding the 200 of Kishurim to the number of Web sites of schools is that available at the National Site for Israel in Netdays Europe http://netdays.org.il (92) and visits to the main educational networks (Netschool (116), Keshev, Amalnet (37), ORT, Snunit (12), Tzafonet (20) and the file of Israeli schools available at http://www.jajz-ed.org.il(81) . The rough numer of 360 Web sites allows for duplications among the different sources.

(2) Number of Web sites indicated in iGuide ; universities and colleges available at the Academic Site of Israel at http://www.ac.il

(2a) - Web sites of Teacher Colleges available at the National Teachers Colleges Network : http://www.macam98.ac.il

(2b) - Information on Regional Colleges available at: http://www.tau.ac.il:81/colleges . Their sites available at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs site: http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il

(2c) - Sites accessible at the Academic Web of Israel http://www.ac.il

(3) The sites of the Ministries are available either at the Government Portal : http://www.info.gov.il or at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il

(4) The number of local authorities in Israel is from Central Bureau of Statistics Statistical Annuary for Israel (1998) . The table is available at the CBS web site in: http://www.cbs.gov.il/shnaton//st02-13ab_h.shtml . There are 61 Municipalities; 148 Local Councils; 51 Regional Councils in the pre-1997 Israel territories; 7 Regional Councils in the post-1997 territories. The Web sites were found both at the Union of Local Authorities in Israel http://www.cityindex.co.il/city_sys/index.asp with 256 sites established by the Union for each Local Authority and complemented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il (independent sites – 66 Local Authorities).

(5) The Ministry of Health maintain only a list of governmental hospitals and the main Health Insurance Cooperatives. Comprehensive lists were obtained and conflated from a commercial site: http://www.doctor.co.il/hospitalslink.htm and from the Maccabi Health Insurance Cooperative site: http://www.maccabi-health.co.il/services_guide/hospital.html The list of Web sites was obtained from the Ministry of Health site: http://www.health.gov.il/code/kishur.htm for governmental hospitals and from the Clalit Health Insurance Cooperative site at: http://www.clalit.co.il/hospital/hosp2.htm

(6) The list of museums obtained at http://www.rakia.com and http://www.travel2000.co.il . The museums and archaeological museums sites obtained at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs site: http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il

(7a) The sites of Academic libraries is available at the The Israeli Library Network at: http://libnet.ac.il/~libnet/net/librarys.html. In addition to the libraries listed here there are about Special Libraries in Israel; their Periodicals Holdings are available at the Unified List of Serials; such libraries are internal libraries of institutions and businesses and should not be expected to establish public available catalogues or Web sites. The Union List of Serials lists over 99,000 different serial titles held by over 170 special libraries and collections (see http://libnet.ac.il/~libnet/uls/ulsinfo.htm).

(7b) The list of Teachers Colleges Libraries connected is available at: http://www.macam98.ac.il/library/

(7c) The Training Centre for Public Libraries in Isael (http://www.icl.org.il) estimates unofficially that the number of public and local libraries in 1200 ; There are reason to suppose that several of them have Web sites embedded in the Web sites of their local authorities (municipalities); however direct links have been found for only for 10 such local libraries.

3. Israeli Web Sites by Domain Names

Source: The iGuide sites analysis sorted by Web sites domain name http://www.iguide.co.il/sites/sites.htm but hasn’t been updated since January 2000.

The number of Web sites per domains for this report were calculated following the percentage of Web sites for each domain name published in January applied to the update we were able to reconstitute with the collaboration of the Israel Internet Association, ccTLD registrar for Israel. (see: http://www.isoc.org.il)

4. Israeli Institutions Domain Growth

Source: The Israel Internet Society (http://www.isoc.org.il) , the ccTLD (Country Code Top Level Domain) domain name registrar calculated for the ESIS survey the monthly registration of domains for the year 2000. These have been added to the original iGuide Israeli institutions domains growth http://www.iguide.co.il/stats.htm . In the original site you will find the domains partitioned by secondary level: co.il; org.il; ac.il; k12.il; gov.il; net.il; muni.il; com; net; org; edu; israel.net

The iGuide site hasn’t been updated since January 2000. A file with the registered domain names in Israel was usually available at the Israel Internet Association web site (http://www.isoc.org.il) which is the IL ccTLD registrar. This file is not and will not be available in the future.