This article is part of a multi-part article series aimed at helping small businesses grow and succeed online.
For more information about of the article series, go here:
In this article, you will learn some WordPress statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress to power their business websites and what kind of people and businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress: How Popular Is It? Statistics About WordPress
Here is a summary of what you will learn in this article:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress site.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress. This number is growing everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world are driven by WordPress.
- WordPress sites around the world publish an average of 24 posts per second.
- WordPress sites receive over 22 billion monthly pageviews.
- WordPress blogs receive around 50 million comments per month.
- WordPress has been translated into over 70 languages.
- More than 60% of all sites worldwide that use a CMS application are driven by WordPress.
- Over 35 million searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress is continually built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world work on developing and improving WordPress functionality on an ongoing basis.
- WordPress is updated on a regular basis to fix bugs and improve both its ease of use and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what can be built using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Usage
A content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easy for non-technical website owners to add, modify and manage all content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the widely-used self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of websites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.
WordPress is owned by Automattic.com, which currently employs around 300 people, all of whom work from home. Despite being a distributed company and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, and eBay …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest statistics on WordPress usage:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress usage figures. Source: trends.builtwith.com/cms)
In terms of CMS market share, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more and more sites are now being built on the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the numbers change so often.
For example, at the time this article was written, this is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download figure represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their installations to the latest release …
(WP versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this article was being written, the number of downloads has already grown. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will no doubt see a significantly higher figure … perhaps even a newer version, as WordPress continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has made available to users over one hundred new update versions in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress releases are named in honor of well-known Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.2 = Stan Getz (May 16, 2007),
- v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress?
In a nutshell, all different kinds of companies and people are using WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.
Large corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous musicians, colleges, government sectors, humanitarian organizations – even nations are using WordPress to run their official websites …
WP Website Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of businesses, institutions and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Bata, Public Storage Canada, GDF SUEZ, McDonald’s Singapore, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Nancy Pelosi, Brian Smith, The Sacramento Ballet, The Rolling Stones, Katie Couric, Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Brand, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, International Relations Online at American University, UCF College of Medicine, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Fortune, Time.com, Facebook Newsroom, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Governments, Public Services & Community Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Museum of History, São Paulo Carnival, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their own domain and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are business marketing or sales purposes.
- More than half of all WordPress users use the hosted version on WordPress.com
- In 2014, blogs that are part of the WordPress network (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress provides a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress.com – Activity Around The World
In later posts, we will address the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 free WordPress plugins …
(WordPress plugin directory)
For a detailed article about plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 themes for free …
(WordPress.org themes directory)
For more information about themes see this post:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org language translations)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around thirty million …
(WP-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online 5 x more than Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of all WordPress users who participated in the survey stated that they make a full-time living off WordPress. An earlier survey conducted by WordPress (2012) also found that the median hourly rate of WordPress projects is US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork.com, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see from the facts and figures above, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to dominate the CMS market.
In other articles, we will explore the following areas of WordPress in detail:
- Why WordPress is an ideal platform to grow your business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed look at the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted traffic, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be regularly posting new step-by-step tutorials and tips of how to use WordPress and expand your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and web design.
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Information Sources:
The information for this post was sourced from various locations around the web, including the following sites:
- https://wordpress.org
- https://wordpress.com
- http://automattic.com
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPress
- http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress/all/all
- http://trends.builtwith.com/cms
- http://ma.tt/2014/10/sotw-2014
- https://managewp.com/14-surprising-statistics-about-wordpress-usage
- http://torquemag.io/13-surprising-wordpress-statistics
- https://websitebuilder.org/resources/amazing-facts-you-probably-dont-know-about-wordpress
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