This blog post is part of a detailed multi-part article series aimed at helping business owners and non-technical users grow online.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this article, you will learn a number of WordPress usage facts and figures 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.
Statistics And Usage About WordPress
The short version:
- WordPress began 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 website or blog.
- 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 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 using a CMS application are driven by WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is built and improved upon by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world work on developing and improving WordPress on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress application is regularly updated to address bugs and improve its features 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 WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what someone can do using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Dominance
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easy for non-technical website owners to add, modify and manage all content on their website.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the widely-used 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 are home-based. Despite its distributed model and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Yahoo, and eBay …
(WordPress.com unique monthly views. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest stats on WordPress:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress CMS usage figures. 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 sites today are using the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the information 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 download numbers represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their WP installations to the latest release …
(WordPress versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this article was being written, the number of downloads has already grown. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will no doubt see a significantly higher number of downloads … perhaps even a different version, as WordPress continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has released over 100 new updates to date …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been released in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress upgrades are named after well-known Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
- v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
- v.3.3 = Sonny Stitt (December 12, 2011),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
In a nutshell, all kinds of organizations and people use WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Well-known brands, businesses, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous musicians, educational institutions, government department sites, not-for-profits – even countries use WordPress-powered sites …
WordPress Blog Showcase
Here are just some of the businesses, companies and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Sony Music, Glad, Method Products, Groupe Vivendi, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Ariana Grande, Kylie Minogue, Beyoncé, The Sacramento Ballet, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, William Shatner, Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Brand, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Bates College, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Time Inc., Time.com, InStyle News, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Community Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Museum of History, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses often choose the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their domain and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for business use.
- 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 posts per 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 – Live Users WorldWide
In other tutorials, we will cover the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over almost 40,000 free plugins from the WordPress plugin directory …
(WordPress.org free plugins repository)
For a detailed article about WP plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 free themes …
(WP free themes repository)
We have written a detailed article about WP themes here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org language translations)
Searching Online For WordPress
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”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around 37 million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets 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, 25% of 33,000 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 US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the smartest option in most situations when it comes to choosing a platform for growing your business online,
- Over fifty compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive review of the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted traffic, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide lots of ”how to” tutorials and examples of how to use WordPress to expand your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and website design.
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Information 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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