This blog post is part of a detailed series of articles aimed at helping you grow a successful business online with the WordPress CMS.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this article, we present a number of statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress and what kind of businesses are using WordPress today.
WordPress: Useful Facts And Statistics
Here is a summary of what you will learn in this post:
- WordPress began as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress is available as a hosted application (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 or blog.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number grows significantly every day.
- 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 CMS application are driven 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. The WordPress application is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built and improved upon by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress application every day.
- The WordPress core program is regularly updated to eliminate bugs and improve its usage and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages and dialects.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what you can do using WordPress.
WordPress Usage
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 website owners to add, modify and manage all content on their website.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, it has become the largest self-hosted blogging tool 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 the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com unique monthly views. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest figures on WordPress CMS usage:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress CMS usage statistics. 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 WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that 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 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 WP installations to the latest version …
(WordPress versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
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 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.
Regarding updates, WordPress has made available to users over 100 new update versions to date …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress releases are named after famous Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
- v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
Who isn’t using WordPress nowadays? All types of businesses and people are using WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Well-known corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous actors, educational institutions, government department sites, community organizations – even countries are using WordPress to run their official sites …
WordPress.org Web Site Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of sites, companies and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Bata, Boardshorts.com, Panic, McDonald’s Singapore, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Rush, Lily Allen, Brian Smith, Usain Bolt, Snoop Dogg, Dave Matthews Band, Howie Mandel, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, International Relations Online at American University, UCF College of Medicine, MIT Sloan Management Review, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Time Inc., Time.com, FiveThirtyEight, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Community Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Canadian Museum of History, São Paulo Carnival, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as a hosted platform (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 set up for business activities.
- 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 new blog posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
You can see a live map showing the latest user activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress.com – Live Users WorldWide
In later posts, we cover the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 free WordPress plugins …
(WordPress.org free plugins repository)
We have written a great article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free themes …
(WordPress.org free themes directory)
We have published a great article about WordPress themes here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than thirty-seven million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched online 5 x 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 WordPress users who participated in 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 by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see from the information presented above, WordPress is bound for continued growth for many years to come.
In other blog posts, we will explore the following areas of WordPress in great detail:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a vehicle for growing your small business online,
- Over fifty compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed breakdown of the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive more visitors, get more leads, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide new tutorials and practical tips on how you can use WordPress to grow your business online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and website design.
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References:
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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