This blog post is part of a comprehensive multi-part series of articles aimed at helping small businesses succeed online.
For more information about of the article series, go here:
In this article, we present a number of statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.
Statistics And Market Share About WordPress
The brief version:
- WordPress began 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).
- 23 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number is growing everyday.
- 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 websites using a CMS application are powered by WordPress.
- Over 30,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world work on developing and improving the WordPress software on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress core functionality is regularly updated to fix bugs and improve its features and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what can be built using WordPress.
WordPress Market Share
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical users to add, modify and manage all content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, WordPress has become the largest self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform 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 being a distributed company and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo.com, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com unique monthly visits. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest figures on WordPress:
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 sites are being powered by the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the information changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was written, here is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download numbers represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their installations to the latest release …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this article was being written, the number of downloads has already shot up. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will see a significantly higher download number … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress developer community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has made available over 100 new software versions to date …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress version updates are traditionally named after Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
- v.3.3 = Sonny Stitt (December 12, 2011),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
In a nutshell, all types of enterprises and people from all walks of life use WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Leading corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, colleges, government sectors, community organizations – even countries are using WordPress to publish web content and run their official websites …
WP Showcase
Here are just some of the sites, organizations and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Coca-Cola France, Glad, GDF SUEZ, McDonald’s Singapore, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Kylie Minogue, Brian Smith, Usain Bolt, Riverdance, Mötley Crüe, Howie Mandel, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Washington University’s School of Law, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Fortune, The New Yorker, Facebook Newsroom, LinkedIn, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Chicago Weather Center, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, 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 often choose the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their own domain and freely modified 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 blog posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress.com publishes a live map that shows the latest activity across its hosted service …
WordPress.com – Live Users WorldWide
In other articles, we address the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 free WP plugins from the WordPress free plugins repository …
(WordPress free plugins repository)
For a detailed article about plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free WP themes from the WordPress themes directory …
(WordPress.org themes repository)
We have written a comprehensive article about themes here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
Searching Online For WordPress
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 thirty-seven million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched 5 x as much as Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of all 33,000 users who responded to 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 US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow.
In other blog posts, we will address the following areas in detail:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a platform for growing your small business online,
- Over 50 compelling 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 drive more traffic, increase conversions, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing lots of tutorials and tips of how you can use WordPress to grow your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and website design.
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Sources:
The above figures 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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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now