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This blog post is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping you succeed online.

For more information about of the article series, go here:

• An Online Guide To Building Your Successful Business With A WordPress Site

In this blog post, you will learn a number of WordPress usage facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their websites and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.

WordPress Statistics

Here is a summary of what you will learn in this article:

• WordPress started in 2003.
• WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
• 22 out of every 100 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 every day.
• WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world are powered 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 sites worldwide that use a content management system are driven by WordPress.
• Over 35,000,000 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 is built and improved upon by volunteers. People from all around the world are at work developing and improving WordPress every day.
• The WordPress core application is regularly updated to address bugs and improve both its ease of use and security.
• WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages and dialects.
• The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
• There is almost no limit to what type of site you can build with WordPress.

WordPress CMS 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 website users to add, modify 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 most downloaded self-hosted content management system (CMS) in the world, used on millions of sites 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 and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo …

(WordPress.com unique monthly views. Source: http://automattic.com/about)

Consider the following WordPress usage statistics:

WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …

(WP CMS usage stats. Source: trends.builtwith.com/cms)

In terms of CMS dominance, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …

(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)

In fact, more websites are now being built on the WordPress CMS application.

WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the numbers change so frequently.

For example, at the time this article was published, here is the 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 WP installations to the latest release …

(WP versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)

Even as this article was being written, the number of downloads has already shot up. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will no doubt see a significantly higher download figure … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress developer community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.

Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available over one hundred new software versions to date …

(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been made available since 2003)

WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months or so …

(WordPress regularly releases new versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)

here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress version updates are typically named after famous Jazz music artists, eg:

• v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
• v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
• v.3.0 = Thelonious Monk (June 17, 2010),
• v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
• v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
• etc …

Who Uses WordPress

A better question is who doesn’t use WordPress? All types of companies and people from all walks of life use WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.

Well-known corporations, businesses, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, educational institutions, government sectors, not-for-profits – even countries use WordPress to run their official websites …

WordPress.org Website Showcase

Here are just some of the many sites, organizations and people who are using WordPress:

• Businesses & Corporations: Factory Jackson, Dole, Method Products, McDonald’s Singapore, Hyatt Blog, etc …
• Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, Kylie Minogue, Brian Smith, The Sacramento Ballet, Riverdance, Dave Matthews Band, Channing Tatum, Russell Brand, etc …
• Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, International Relations Online at American University, Bates College, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
• Magazines & Media: Thrive Magazine, The Australian, IMC TV, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
• Governments, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Museum of History, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.

Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).

• Businesses often choose the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their domain and freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for business applications.
• 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 externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog posts per second (around 1.5 million per day).

WordPress.com publishes a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …

WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity

In later tutorials, we will address the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.

Other Statistics About WordPress

WordPress Plugins

WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 free plugins from the WordPress plugin directory …

(WordPress.org plugin directory)

For more information about WordPress plugins go here:

• Using WordPress Plugins To Enhance Your Site’s Features

WordPress Themes

WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free WordPress themes from the WordPress themes directory …

(WordPress.org free themes directory)

For more information about WP themes go here:

• A Practical Guide To WP Themes

WordPress Language Translations

WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects in addition to English …

(WordPress.org languages)

WordPress Searches Online

The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress 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 than Drupal.

WordPress Rates

According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all 33,000 users who participated in the survey said that they make a full-time living off the WordPress CMS. 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 …

According to Upwork.com, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are around $10 – $500 …

(Source: Upwork.com)

As you can see from the statistics presented above, WordPress is set for continued growth for a long time to come.

In other blog posts, you will learn:

• Why WordPress is the best platform to grow your small business online,
• Over 50 reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed look at the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
• Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
• How to generate more visitors to your site, get more leads and subscribers, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
• Plus, we’ll be providing new tutorials and tips on how you can use WordPress to grow your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and web design.

Subscribe below & receive 101+ useful WordPress tips that will help grow your business online faster ...

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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