This article is part of an article series aimed at helping small business owners grow online.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, we present some WordPress statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their websites and what kind of businesses are using WordPress today.
Some Useful Facts And Figures About WordPress
Below is a summary of what you will learn in this post:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number increases every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide 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 content management system are powered by WordPress.
- Over 35 million searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually worked on by volunteers. People from all around the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress application every day.
- The WordPress core program is continually being updated to fix 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 international languages and dialects.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what type of site you can build with WordPress.
WordPress Market Share
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 owners to add, modify and manage 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 become the largest 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 being a distributed company with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Yahoo.com, and eBay …
(WordPress.com unique monthly visits. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WordPress CMS 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 usage, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more websites and blogs today are using the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with statistics on WordPress is difficult because the data changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was written, here 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 recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their installations to the latest release …
(WP versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this post was being written, the number of downloads has already shot up. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will no doubt see a significantly higher figure … perhaps even a newer version, as WordPress 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 one hundred new software versions in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress releases are named after well-known Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
Who doesn’t use WordPress nowadays? All different kinds of enterprises and people from all walks of life use WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.
Large brands, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous musicians, universities, government department sites, community organizations – even nations use WordPress to publish web content and run their official sites …
WordPress Showcase
Here are just some of the businesses, institutions and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Coca-Cola France, DC Diaper Bank, Panic, Group Bouygues, Vogue, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Ariana Grande, Lily Allen, Brian Smith, Usain Bolt, The Rolling Stones, Katie Couric, Channing Tatum, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, International Relations Online at American University, Washington University’s School of Law, MIT Sloan Management Review, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Tribune Media, The Australian, IMC TV, CBS New York, etc.
- Governments, Public Services & Community Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Museum of History, Slow Food Italia, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer to download the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their domain and 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, WordPress blogs (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress.com publishes a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Activity
In later articles, we present the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 free plugins from the WordPress plugin repository …
(WordPress.org free plugins repository)
We have published a detailed article about WordPress plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 WordPress themes at no cost from the WordPress theme repository …
(WordPress.org free themes directory)
For more information about themes go here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around thirty-five million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched five times more than Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all 33,000 users who responded to the survey stated that they make a full-time living off the WordPress CMS. 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.com …
According to Upwork.com, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see from the facts and figures above, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to dominate the CMS market.
In other blog posts, we will address the following:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a vehicle to grow your small business online,
- Over fifty great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive review of the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted visitors to your site, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing new ”how to” tutorials and practical examples and tips on how to use WordPress to expand your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
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References:
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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