This article is part of a multi-part series of articles aimed at helping small businesses grow and succeed online.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, you will learn a number of surprising WordPress facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their business websites and blogs and what kind of businesses are using WordPress today.
Some Useful Statistics About WordPress Usage
The short version:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number grows 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 that use a CMS application are built with WordPress.
- Over 30,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is built by volunteers. People from all over the world work on developing and improving the WordPress application each day.
- The WordPress application is updated on a regular basis to eliminate bugs and improve both its usage and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what you can do with WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Dominance
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easier for non-technical website owners to add, modify and manage all content on their site.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the widely-used self-hosted content management system (CMS) in the world, used on millions of sites and accessed 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 its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo …
(WordPress.com unique visits. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest WordPress CMS usage stats:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress CMS usage statistics. Source: trends.builtwith.com/cms)
In terms of CMS usage, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more sites today are powered by the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the numbers change so often.
For example, at the time this article was written, here is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download figure represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites to the latest version …
(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 click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, expect to see a significantly higher download number … perhaps even an updated version, as the WordPress development community 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 since 2003 …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been released in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress version releases have a tradition of being named after famous Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.3 = Sonny Stitt (December 12, 2011),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
Who isn’t using WordPress nowadays? All kinds of companies and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about everything under the sun.
Large corporations, businesses, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous musicians, colleges, government sectors, not-for-profits – even nations are using WordPress-powered sites …
WordPress Website Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of businesses, institutions and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Coca-Cola France, Dole, Panic, Groupe Vivendi, Vogue, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Ariana Grande, The Meredith Vieira Show, Brian Smith, Usain Bolt, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, William Shatner, Channing Tatum, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Bates College, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Fortune, Time.com, InStyle News, Enterprise Magazine, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Chicago Weather Center, Slow Food Italia, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (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 domains and freely 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, WordPress blogs (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
You can see a live map that shows user activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Activity
In other posts, we look at the main 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 free plugins …
(WP free plugins repository)
For a detailed article about WP plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 themes for free …
(WordPress.org free themes directory)
For more information about WP themes see this post:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages in addition to English …
(WordPress language translations)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around thirty million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched online 5 x more than Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of all WordPress users who responded to 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 at freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see from the facts and figures above, the growth of WordPress is expected to continue for many years to come.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is an ideal vehicle to grow your small business online,
- Dozens of great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed look at the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted traffic to your website, get more leads, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide ongoing ”how to” tutorials and tips on how to use WordPress and grow your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on website 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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