This blog post is part of a detailed article series aimed at helping you succeed online with WordPress.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, we present some WordPress statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their business websites and blogs and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.
Impressive Statistics About WordPress Usage
In short:
- WordPress began as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress site.
- 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 worldwide 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 driven by WordPress.
- Over 30 million searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress is worked on by volunteers. People from all over the world work on developing and improving WordPress functionality on an ongoing basis.
- WordPress is continually being updated to eliminate 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 70 languages and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what you can do using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Dominance
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, edit 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. WordPress is now the most downloaded 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 work from home. Despite its distributed model and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, and eBay …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest stats on WordPress usage:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress usage figures. 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 and blogs are now being built with the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the numbers change so frequently.
For example, at the time this article was written, this is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download numbers represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites to the latest release …
(WordPress versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
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 site, expect to see a significantly higher number of downloads … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress 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 one hundred new software versions in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress releases are named in honor of well-known Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.5 = Billy Strayhorn (February 17, 2005),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
In a nutshell, all kinds of companies and people use WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Leading brands, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, universities, government sectors, not-for-profits – even nations use WordPress-powered sites …
WordPress Showcase
Here are just some of the sites, institutions and people who are using WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Factory Jackson, DC Diaper Bank, Method Products, McDonald’s Singapore, Vogue, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Rush, Pixies, Brian Smith, Usain Bolt, Snoop Dogg, Kobe Bryant, Channing Tatum, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Washington University’s School of Law, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Fortune, The Australian, InStyle News, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Olympic Committee, Maryland National Road Association, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, 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 software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer to download the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their own domain names and customized to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for commercial 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 self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new blog posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map that shows the latest activity across its hosted service …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity Worldwide
In later posts, we examine the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 free plugins from the WordPress free plugins directory …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
We have written a comprehensive article about WP plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 WordPress themes at no cost …
(WP free themes directory)
We have written a great article about themes here:
WordPress In Different Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages in addition to English …
(WP language translations)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Additional 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 …
(WP-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched 5 x more than Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of 33,000 WordPress 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 median hourly rate of WordPress projects is US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see from the information presented above, WordPress is bound for continued growth for many years to come.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best platform to grow your small business online,
- Dozens of great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive breakdown of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted visitors, get more leads and subscribers, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing ongoing step-by-step tutorials and tips of how you can use WordPress and expand your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and website design.
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References:
The information for this post 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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