This article is part of a detailed article series designed to help small businesses grow online.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, we present some impressive facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress and what kind of businesses and people are using WordPress today.
Some Surprising Statistics About WordPress Usage
In short:
- WordPress began as a blogging tool 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 a new WordPress website.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. 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 million searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress is worked on by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world are at work developing and improving WordPress every day.
- The WordPress software is continually being updated to eliminate bugs and improve both its usage and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what you can do with WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Dominance
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical website users to add, edit and manage content on their website.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the most popular self-hosted CMS application 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 are home-based. Despite its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted] unique views. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest figures on WordPress:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP 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 and more websites are being powered by the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that 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, here is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download figure represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their WP installations 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, you should expect to see a significantly higher download number … perhaps even a newer 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 over one hundred new updates in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress updates are named in honor of well-known Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
- v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
- v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
- v.3.7 = Count Basie (October 24, 2013),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
In a nutshell, all different types of enterprises and people are using WordPress to blog about everything under the sun.
Popular brands, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous actors, colleges, government department sites, community organizations – even nations use WordPress to run their official websites …
WordPress.org Blog Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, institutions and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Coca-Cola France, Public Storage Canada, GDF SUEZ, McDonald’s Singapore, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Lily Allen, Brian Smith, The Sacramento Ballet, The Rolling Stones, Katie Couric, Gabriel Iglesias, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Bates College, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Tribune Media, Time.com, Facebook Newsroom, LinkedIn, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Community Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Olympic Committee, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, 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 clearly 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 form of commercial activity.
- 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.com publishes a live map that shows the latest activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Activity
In other articles, we examine the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over almost 40,000 free WordPress plugins from the WordPress free plugin directory …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
We have published a comprehensive article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free WP themes …
(WordPress free themes repository)
For more information about WP themes see this post:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org language translations)
WordPress Searches Online
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”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than thirty-seven million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched five times as much as Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of 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 around US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to dominate the CMS market.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is an ideal platform for growing your business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed review of the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted visitors to your site, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing ongoing tutorials and practical tips of how you can use WordPress to expand your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
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Sources:
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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