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In this article, you will learn some surprising WordPress usage facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.
WordPress: Facts And Figures
The quick version:
- WordPress started in 2003.
- WordPress is available as a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number increases every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide are driven 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 built with WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress software on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress software is updated on a regular basis to eliminate bugs and improve its features and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy 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 type of site you can build with WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Share
A content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical users to add, modify and manage content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, it has grown to be the widely-used self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform in the world, used on millions of websites 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 software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest figures on WordPress usage:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress CMS usage stats. 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 with WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the numbers change so often.
For example, at the time this article was published, here is the current 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 WP installations to the latest release …
(WP 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 page, you will see a significantly higher number of downloads … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress developer team continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available to users over 100 new update versions to date …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress version updates are traditionally named after Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- 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 Is Using WordPress
In a nutshell, all different kinds of companies and people are using WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.
Global corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, universities, government sectors, not-for-profits – even nations use WordPress …
WP Showcase
Here are just some of the businesses, companies and people using WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Bata, Public Storage Canada, Method Products, Group Bouygues, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Kylie Minogue, Justin Bieber, The Sacramento Ballet, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, Mötley Crüe, Gabriel Iglesias, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, International Relations Online at American University, UCF College of Medicine, Salve Regina University, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Thrive Magazine, The Australian, Facebook Newsroom, CBS New York, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Chicago Weather Center, Slow Food Italia, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses clearly prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their domain names and customized to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are business marketing 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 blog posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
WordPress provides a live map that shows user activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity Around The World
In other posts, we examine the 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 WordPress plugins at no cost from the WordPress plugins repository …
(WordPress.org free plugins directory)
For more information about plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 WP themes for free …
(WordPress free themes directory)
For more information about WordPress themes go here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than thirty 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 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of users who responded to the survey stated 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 around US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see from the facts and figures above, WordPress is bound for continued growth for many years to come.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a vehicle to grow your business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed breakdown of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate more visitors to your site, get more leads and subscribers, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be regularly posting lots of ”how to” tutorials and examples of how you can use WordPress to grow your business online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and web design.
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Sources:
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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