This article is part of a comprehensive multi-part series of articles aimed at helping business owners and non-technical users grow online using the WordPress CMS.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this article, we present some surprising statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress: Facts And Statistics
A brief summary:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress is available as a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows significantly every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide are powered 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 content management system are driven by WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress is worked on by volunteers. People from all around the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress software every day.
- The WordPress core functionality is continually being updated to eliminate bugs and improve its features and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what someone can do using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Dominance
A content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical users to add, modify and manage all content on their site.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, WordPress has become the most downloaded self-hosted CMS application 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 are home-based. Despite its distributed model and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WordPress CMS usage statistics:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress usage statistics. Source: trends.builtwith.com/cms)
In terms of CMS dominance, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more websites and blogs are now powered by WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that even 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 published, this is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download figures represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their sites to the latest version …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post was being written, the number of downloads has already shot up. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you should expect to see a significantly higher download number … perhaps even a different 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 100 new update versions since 2003 …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress upgrades have a tradition of being named in honor of well-known Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.5 = Billy Strayhorn (February 17, 2005),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
- v.3.3 = Sonny Stitt (December 12, 2011),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress?
A better question is who isn’t using WordPress nowadays? All different types of enterprises and people are using WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.
Large corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous actors, educational institutions, government department sites, non-profit organizations – even nations are using WordPress to run their official websites and blogs …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, institutions and people using WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Coca-Cola France, Dole, Dassault Aviation, McDonald’s Singapore, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Ariana Grande, Nancy Pelosi, Beyoncé, The Sacramento Ballet, Snoop Dogg, Kobe Bryant, Gabriel Iglesias, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, International Relations Online at American University, Bates College, MIT Sloan Management Review, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Fortune, New York Post, Facebook Newsroom, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Community Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Chicago Weather Center, Maryland National Road Association, CURE International, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses clearly prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their domain names and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used for marketing and promoting businesses.
- 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 new posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map showing the latest user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress.com – Live Activity
In later articles, we will explain the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 plugins at no cost …
(WordPress.org free plugins directory)
We have written a detailed article about WP plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free WordPress themes from the WordPress free theme directory …
(WordPress.org free themes directory)
We have written a great article about WordPress themes here:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around thirty-five million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online 5 x as much as Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of users who answered the survey stated that they make a full-time living off WordPress. An earlier survey conducted by WordPress (2012) also found that the average hourly rate of WordPress projects is US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see from the above statistics, WordPress is set for continued growth for many years to come.
In other blog posts, we will cover the following areas of WordPress in detail:
- Why WordPress is the best platform for growing your small business online,
- Over 50 reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed breakdown of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted visitors, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide loads of tutorials and tips of how you can use WordPress and expand your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on website development and web design costs.
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Sources:
The above figures were 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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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)