This blog post is part of a comprehensive series of articles designed to help small business owners succeed online.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this article, you will learn some impressive WordPress usage statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their websites and what kind of people and businesses are using WordPress today.
WordPress: Useful Facts And Figures
The short version:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress site.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress. This number increases every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world 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 websites that use a content management system are built with WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is worked on by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving WordPress on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress core application is continually being updated to eliminate 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 70 languages.
- WordPress 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 Share
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 users to add, modify and manage all content on their site.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the most popular 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 so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, and Yahoo …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest stats 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 dominance, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more and more websites and blogs are now powered by the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with the latest statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the information changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was written, here is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above 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 …
(WordPress versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this post was being written, the number of downloads has already increased. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, expect to see a much higher figure … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress developer team 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 to date …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been made available since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress version releases are named in honor of Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.3.0 = Thelonious Monk (June 17, 2010),
- v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
A better question is who doesn’t use WordPress nowadays? All types of organizations and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Leading corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous actors, educational institutions, government sectors, not-for-profits – even countries are using WordPress to run their official websites …
WordPress Website Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, organizations and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Coca-Cola France, Public Storage Canada, Panic, Group Bouygues, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, Pixies, Brian Smith, The Sacramento Ballet, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, Mötley Crüe, Channing Tatum, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Washington University’s School of Law, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Time Inc., Time.com, InStyle News, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Canadian Museum of History, Maryland National Road Association, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer to download the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their domain and freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for commercial use.
- More than half of all WordPress users use the hosted version on WordPress.com
- In 2014, WordPress blogs (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new blog posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress publishes a live map that shows the latest user activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress.com – Activity
In later articles, we will explain the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 WordPress plugins at no cost …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
We have written a great article about WP plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free themes from the WordPress themes repository …
(WP theme directory)
We have published a comprehensive article about themes here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WP languages)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around 30 million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched five times more than Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of 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 average hourly rate of WordPress projects is US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow.
In other articles, we will address the following areas of WordPress in detail:
- Why WordPress is an ideal platform for growing your business online,
- Dozens of great 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 drive more visitors, increase conversions, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing lots of tutorials and examples on how to use WordPress and expand your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
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Information Sources:
The above statistics 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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