This article is part of a detailed multi-part article series designed to help you grow a successful business online.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this article, we present some surprising WordPress statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress and what kind of people and businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress: Surprising Facts And Figures
In short:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number grows 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 sites using a content management system are driven by 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 under an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is worked on by volunteers. People from all around the world work on developing and improving WordPress functionality every day.
- The WordPress software is continually being updated to eliminate bugs and improve its usage and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what you can do using WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website 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 began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the most popular self-hosted content management system (CMS) in the world, used on millions of sites and seen 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 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, eBay, Yahoo, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com unique monthly views. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest WordPress CMS usage statistics:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress 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 and more sites are being built with WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with statistics on WordPress is difficult because the numbers change so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was written, this is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download figure represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites to the latest version …
(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 page, expect to see a much higher download figure … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress development 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 updates in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress updates are named in honor of well-known Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- 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.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
In a nutshell, all different kinds of enterprises and people use WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.
Large brands, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, colleges, government department sites, not-for-profits – even countries are using WordPress-powered sites …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, organizations and people using WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Bata, Dole, GDF SUEZ, Groupe Vivendi, Vogue, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Rush, Pixies, Brian Smith, Usain Bolt, Snoop Dogg, Katie Couric, Howie Mandel, Russell Brand, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Bates College, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Time Inc., The New Yorker, Facebook Newsroom, Enterprise Magazine, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Olympic Committee, Maryland National Road Association, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their domain and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used for running some kind of enterprise.
- 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 per day).
You can see a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress.com – Activity Around The World
In later posts, we present the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 plugins for free from the WordPress plugin repository …
(WordPress free plugins repository)
For more information about plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 WP themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org theme directory)
For a detailed article about themes see this post:
Using WordPress In Other Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org language translations)
WordPress Searches
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-five million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online five times more than Joomla and 9x more 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 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 US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see, WordPress is bound for continued growth for many years to come.
In other blog posts, we will cover the following areas in great detail:
- Why WordPress is an ideal platform for growing your business online,
- Over 50 compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed breakdown of the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate more visitors, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be regularly posting lots of step-by-step tutorials and examples on how you can use WordPress to grow your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
Subscribe below & receive 101+ useful WordPress tips that will help grow your business online faster ...
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
***
"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum