This blog post is part of a detailed article series aimed at helping you grow a successful business online.
For more information about of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, we present a number of WordPress usage statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress and what kind of businesses are using WordPress today.
Statistics And Usage Of WordPress
A brief summary:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number is growing every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world are built with 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 using a content management system are driven by WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is built by volunteers. People from all over the world work on developing and improving WordPress functionality on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress core program is continually being updated to address bugs and improve its usage and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international 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 you can build using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Dominance
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easy for non-technical website users to add, modify and manage all content on their website.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, it has grown to 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 Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo.com, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted] unique monthly visits. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following WP usage stats:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP 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 websites and blogs are now being built with the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the data changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was written, this is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above figures represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their WP installations to the latest version …
(WordPress versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post was being written, the number of downloads has already grown. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will no doubt 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.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available to users over 100 new updates to date …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress version releases have a tradition of being named after famous Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
- 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 Uses WordPress
Who doesn’t use WordPress nowadays? All different kinds of businesses and people use WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Giant corporations, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, universities, government sectors, not-for-profits – even nations are using WordPress …
WP Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of sites, organizations and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Coca-Cola France, Public Storage Canada, GDF SUEZ, Group Bouygues, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Rush, Kylie Minogue, Brian Smith, Usain Bolt, The Rolling Stones, Mötley Crüe, Gabriel Iglesias, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Washington University’s School of Law, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Tribune Media, Time.com, Facebook Newsroom, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Chicago Weather Center, São Paulo Carnival, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Amnesty International Korea, 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 own domain names and freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are business marketing activities.
- 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 self-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 Worldwide
In other articles, we will cover the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 plugins at no cost from the WordPress free plugins directory …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
We have written a detailed article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 WP themes at no cost from the WordPress free theme directory …
(WordPress.org themes repository)
We have published a great article about themes here:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages in addition to English …
(WP languages)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than thirty-seven million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online 5 x more than Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of 33,000 WP 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 around US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see from the above statistics, the growth of WordPress is expected to continue for a long time to come.
In other blog posts, we will explore the following areas of WordPress in great detail:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a platform to grow your small business online,
- Over 50 reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive review of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive more traffic to your website, increase conversions, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing lots of step-by-step tutorials and examples on how to use WordPress to grow your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
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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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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)