This article is part of a detailed multi-part series of articles aimed at helping business owners and non-technical users succeed online using the WordPress CMS.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, we present a number of WordPress usage statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress to power their business websites and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.
Some Impressive Statistics About WordPress
Below is a summary of what you will learn in this article:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress site.
- 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 around the world 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 worldwide that use a content management system are driven by WordPress.
- Over 30,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- 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 worked on by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving WordPress functionality on an ongoing basis.
- WordPress is continually being updated to address bugs and improve both its ease of use and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what can be built with WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Dominance
A content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical users to add, edit and manage all content on their site.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the widely-used self-hosted content management system (CMS) 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 WordPress software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest statistics on WordPress:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress usage statistics. Source: trends.builtwith.com/cms)
In terms of CMS usage, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more websites today are using the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the data 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 sites to the latest version …
(WordPress versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post was being written, the number of downloads has already grown. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will see a significantly higher download number … 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.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available over 100 new software updates to date …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress version updates are traditionally named in honor of well-known Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.0 = Miles Davis (January 3, 2004),
- v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
- v.3.0 = Thelonious Monk (June 17, 2010),
- v.3.7 = Count Basie (October 24, 2013),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress?
Who doesn’t use WordPress? All different kinds of businesses and people are using WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.
Large brands, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, colleges, government department sites, not-for-profits – even countries are using WordPress sites …
WP Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of sites, institutions and people who use WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Google Ventures, YRC Freight, Dassault Aviation, Group Bouygues, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Ariana Grande, The Meredith Vieira Show, Beyoncé, The Sacramento Ballet, Snoop Dogg, William Shatner, Howie Mandel, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Bates College, Salve Regina University, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Fortune, New York Post, FiveThirtyEight, LinkedIn, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Community Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Museum of History, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Amnesty International Korea, 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 on their domains 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 belonging to 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 per day).
WordPress publishes a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress.com – Live Activity
In other articles, we will explain 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 WP plugins …
(WordPress plugin repository)
We have published a detailed article about WP plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free themes from the WordPress theme directory …
(WordPress.org free themes repository)
We have published a comprehensive article about themes here:
Using WordPress In Other Languages
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 monthly searches on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around thirty million …
(WP-related 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 often than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all 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 median 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.com, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best vehicle for growing your business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive look at the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted traffic, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be regularly posting loads of tutorials and tips on how to use WordPress and expand your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and website design.
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Information 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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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum