This article is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping you understand why the WordPress platform can help your small business achieve its business goals online using the WordPress content publishing software.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, we present a number of 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 people and businesses are using WordPress today.
Statistics And Market Share Of WordPress
Below is a summary of what this blog post will cover:
- 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).
- 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 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number increases everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world 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 using a CMS application are built with WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed as 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 WordPress functionality every day.
- The WordPress software is regularly updated 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.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what someone can do using WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
A content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easier for non-technical users to add, modify and manage content on their site.
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-based publishing platform 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 being a distributed company with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo …
(WordPress [hosted] monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following figures on WordPress:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress usage stats. 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 websites are now using the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the information changes so often.
For example, at the time this article was written, here is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download figure represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their WP installations to the latest release …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post was being written, the number of downloads is already increasing. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you should expect to see a much 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 100 new update versions in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress upgrades are typically named in honor of Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.0 = Miles Davis (January 3, 2004),
- v.2.2 = Stan Getz (May 16, 2007),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.7 = Count Basie (October 24, 2013),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
Who doesn’t use WordPress? All types of companies and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.
Well-known brands, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous actors, colleges, government sectors, non-profit organizations – even countries use WordPress blogs …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, companies and people who use WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Google Ventures, Boardshorts.com, Dassault Aviation, Groupe Vivendi, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Rush, The Meredith Vieira Show, Beyoncé, The Sacramento Ballet, Snoop Dogg, Dave Matthews Band, Channing Tatum, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Washington University’s School of Law, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Tribune Media, The New Yorker, IMC TV, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Governments, Public Services & Community Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Museum of History, Slow Food Italia, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (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 freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used for marketing or promoting businesses.
- 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 new blog posts per second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
You can see a live map showing user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Activity
In other posts, we compare the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 free plugins …
(WP free plugins directory)
We have written a detailed article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free themes …
(WordPress theme repository)
We have written a comprehensive article about WordPress themes here:
WordPress In Different Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org language translations)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than 37 million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched five times as much as Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of 33,000 users who answered 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 around 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 information above, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to dominate the CMS landscape.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the smartest option when it comes to choosing a platform to grow your small business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed breakdown of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted visitors, get more leads and subscribers, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing many ”how to” tutorials and examples of how to use WordPress to expand your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on web development and website 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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