This article is part of a detailed multi-part article series aimed at helping you grow a successful business online.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, we present a number of impressive 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 and people use WordPress today.
Statistics And Market Share Of WordPress
In short:
- WordPress started in 2003.
- WordPress is available in 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.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress. This number increases everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide 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 worldwide that use a content management system are driven by WordPress.
- Over 35,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress is worked on by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress functionality every day.
- The WordPress application is continually being updated to eliminate bugs and improve both its features and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what you can build using WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
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 users to add, modify and manage content on their site.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, it has grown to be the largest self-hosted content management system (CMS) 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 its distributed model and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com unique views. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest statistics on WordPress:
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 market share, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more websites are now powered by the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the numbers change so often.
For example, at the time this article was published, this is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download figures represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their sites to the latest release …
(WordPress 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 were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will no doubt see a much higher figure … perhaps even an updated version, as the WordPress 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 since 2003 …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been released in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress upgrades are typically named after Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
- v.3.0 = Thelonious Monk (June 17, 2010),
- v.3.3 = Sonny Stitt (December 12, 2011),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
In a nutshell, all different types of companies and people use WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.
Well-known brands, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, educational institutions, government sectors, non-profit organizations – even nations use WordPress sites …
WordPress.org Website Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of businesses, institutions and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Factory Jackson, DC Diaper Bank, Panic, McDonald’s Singapore, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Pixies, Justin Bieber, Dallas Mavericks, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, William Shatner, Channing Tatum, Russell Brand, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Bates College, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Time Inc., New York Post, FiveThirtyEight, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Governments, Public Services & Community Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Canadian Museum of History, Slow Food Italia, CURE International, 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 often choose the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their own domain names and freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for commercial uses.
- 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 posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress publishes a live map that shows the latest user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity Around The World
In later posts, we will discuss the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 plugins for free …
(WordPress.org free plugins directory)
We have written a great article about WP plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free WP themes …
(WP free themes directory)
We have published a detailed article about themes here:
Using WordPress In Other Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WP language translations)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around 30 million …
(WP-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched 5 x as much as Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of 33,000 users who answered the survey said that they make a full-time living off WordPress. 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.com …
According to Upwork, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see from the information presented above, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow and dominate in the CMS market.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is an ideal vehicle for growing your small business online,
- Over fifty great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed review of the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted traffic to your website, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing loads of tutorials and tips on how you can use WordPress and expand your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and web design.
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Information 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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