This article is part of a detailed article series designed to help business owners and non-technical users grow and succeed online with the WordPress content publishing platform.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this article, we present a number of impressive facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress and what kind of businesses are using WordPress today.
WordPress: Surprising Facts And Figures
In short:
- WordPress started in 2003.
- WordPress offers users the choice of 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 installing a new WordPress website.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number increases 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 using a CMS application are built with WordPress.
- Over 30,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is completely 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 the WordPress software every day.
- The WordPress application is regularly updated to eliminate bugs and improve its usage and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy 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 build with WordPress.
WordPress CMS Popularity
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 users to add, edit and manage all content on their site.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, it has become the largest self-hosted CMS application in the world, used on millions of websites 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 are home-based. Despite its distributed model and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique views per month than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest WP CMS usage stats:
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 market share, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more and more websites are now using WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the information changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was published, this 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 latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their WP installations to the latest version …
(WP versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this article was being written, the number of downloads is already increasing. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will see a significantly higher download figure … perhaps even an updated version, as the WordPress community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has released over 100 new software updates in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress upgrades have a tradition of being named in honor of famous Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.5 = Billy Strayhorn (February 17, 2005),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.3.0 = Thelonious Monk (June 17, 2010),
- v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
Who doesn’t use WordPress? All kinds of enterprises and people are using WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Giant corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, educational institutions, government sectors, not-for-profits – even nations are using WordPress-powered sites …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of sites, organizations and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Coca-Cola France, DC Diaper Bank, Panic, Groupe Vivendi, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Rush, The Meredith Vieira Show, Justin Bieber, Usain Bolt, The Rolling Stones, Mötley Crüe, Gabriel Iglesias, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, International Relations Online at American University, Washington University’s School of Law, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Fortune, The New Yorker, IMC TV, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Chicago Weather Center, Slow Food Italia, CURE International, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as 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 on their own domains and freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for commercial uses.
- 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 per day).
You can see a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress.com – Live Users WorldWide
In other articles, we will address the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 free plugins from the WordPress free plugin repository …
(WordPress.org free plugins directory)
For more information about plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 free WP themes …
(WordPress.org free themes directory)
We have published a detailed article about WordPress themes here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than 30 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 often than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of all 33,000 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 around 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 job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to dominate the CMS market.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a platform for growing your business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive breakdown of the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive more traffic to your website, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing ongoing ”how to” tutorials and useful examples and tips on how you can use WordPress to expand your business online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and website design.
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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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"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)