This article is part of a multi-part article series designed to help you understand why the WordPress content publishing platform can help your small business achieve its online goals.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, we present a number of surprising statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress and what kind of people and businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress: Usage And Market Share
The short version:
- WordPress began 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 hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number grows significantly everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world 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 worldwide using a content management system are built with WordPress.
- Over 35 million searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving WordPress on an ongoing basis.
- WordPress is regularly updated to address bugs and improve its usage and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what someone can do using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Usage
A content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is a web application 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 most popular self-hosted content management system (CMS) 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 its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique views per month than Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, eBay, and Yahoo.com …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following WP usage figures:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP 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 being built with the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with the latest statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the information changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this article was published, here is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above number represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their installations to the latest version …
(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 see a significantly higher download number … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress developer team continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has released over one hundred new updates to date …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress releases are traditionally named after famous Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.3 = Sonny Stitt (December 12, 2011),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
Who doesn’t use WordPress nowadays? All kinds of companies and people from all walks of life use WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.
Popular brands, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, colleges, government department sites, not-for-profits – even nations use WordPress to run their official websites …
WordPress.org Web Site Showcase
Here are just some of the sites, companies and people using WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, Glad, Dassault Aviation, Group Bouygues, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Nancy Pelosi, Beyoncé, Usain Bolt, Snoop Dogg, Katie Couric, Channing Tatum, Russell Brand, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Washington University’s School of Law, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Tribune Media, The Australian, InStyle News, Enterprise Magazine, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Olympic Committee, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, Amnesty International Korea, 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 clearly prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their own domain and 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 new blog posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress.com provides 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 will cover 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 almost 40,000 free WP plugins from the WordPress free plugins repository …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
We have written a comprehensive article about WordPress plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 WordPress themes for free from the WordPress free themes directory …
(WordPress.org free themes directory)
We have published a detailed article about WordPress themes here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than 35 million …
(WP-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched 5 x more than Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of all users who responded to 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 US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see, 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 best option when it comes to choosing a vehicle to grow your small business online,
- Dozens of 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,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate more visitors, get more leads and subscribers, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide ongoing tutorials and examples of how you can use WordPress and grow your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and website design.
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Information 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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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)