This blog post is part of an article series designed to help you understand how the WordPress CMS can help your small business achieve its business goals online.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, you will learn some facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress to power their websites and what kind of people and businesses are using WordPress today.
How Popular Is WordPress? Some Surprising Facts And Figures About WordPress
Below is a summary of what this post will cover:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number grows everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide are driven 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 CMS application are driven by WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is worked on by volunteers. People from all over the world work on developing and improving WordPress functionality on an ongoing basis.
- WordPress is continually being updated to fix bugs and improve both its features and security.
- WordPress delivers 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 plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what can be built using WordPress.
WordPress Market Dominance
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical website users to add, edit and manage content on their site.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the largest self-hosted CMS application 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 are home-based. Despite its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique visitors than Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo.com, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted] 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 CMS usage figures. 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 and more websites today are powered by the WordPress CMS platform.
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 post was written, this is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above figure represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their installations to the latest version …
(WordPress versions in current 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, you will no doubt see a much higher download figure … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has released over 100 new updates to date …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been made available since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress updates are traditionally named after famous Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.5 = Billy Strayhorn (February 17, 2005),
- v.2.2 = Stan Getz (May 16, 2007),
- v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
Who doesn’t use WordPress? All kinds of organizations and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Popular brands, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, universities, government sectors, not-for-profits – even countries are using WordPress to run their official sites …
WordPress.org Website Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, companies and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Coca-Cola France, Glad, GDF SUEZ, Group Bouygues, Vogue, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Rush, Lily Allen, Brian Smith, The Sacramento Ballet, Riverdance, William Shatner, Channing Tatum, Russell Brand, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, International Relations Online at American University, Bates College, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Thrive Magazine, Time.com, IMC TV, LinkedIn, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Community Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Olympic Committee, Slow Food Italia, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as 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 in their own domain and customized 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, blogs belonging to the WordPress network (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 posts per 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
In later posts, we address the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 WordPress plugins at no cost …
(WordPress free plugins repository)
We have written a great article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 themes for free …
(WordPress.org free themes directory)
We have written a detailed article about themes here:
Using WordPress In Different Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages in addition to English …
(WP language translations)
Searching Online For WordPress
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 online searches 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 five times as much as Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of 33,000 users who answered the survey said 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 …
According to Upwork.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to dominate the CMS landscape.
In other articles, we will address the following:
- Why WordPress is an ideal platform to grow your small business online,
- Dozens of great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive breakdown of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted visitors to your site, get more leads and subscribers, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing new step-by-step tutorials and practical tips and examples of how to use WordPress to grow your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on web development and website design costs.
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Sources:
The information for this article 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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