This article is part of an article series aimed at helping you grow a successful business online.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this article, you will learn some WordPress usage facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress to power their business websites and blogs and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.
WordPress Statistics
The quick version:
- WordPress began as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress. This number is growing everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world are built with 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 that use a content management system are driven by WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built by volunteers. People from all over the world work on developing and improving the WordPress application on an ongoing basis.
- WordPress is regularly 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.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what type of site you can build with WordPress.
WordPress Usage
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical website users to add, edit and manage all content on their site.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the most downloaded self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform 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 having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, and Yahoo.com …
(WordPress.com unique monthly visits. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest statistics on WordPress CMS 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 market share, 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 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 figures represents only the most recently released 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)
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 figure … perhaps even an updated 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 updates in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been released to date)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress version updates are named in honor of Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.5 = Billy Strayhorn (February 17, 2005),
- v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
A better question is who isn’t using WordPress? All different types of organizations and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Giant corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, colleges, government sectors, community organizations – even nations use WordPress to publish web content and run their official websites …
WP Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, companies and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Factory Jackson, Public Storage Canada, Method Products, Group Bouygues, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Rush, The Meredith Vieira Show, Justin Bieber, Usain Bolt, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, William Shatner, Channing Tatum, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Washington University’s School of Law, MIT Sloan Management Review, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Tribune Media, New York Post, InStyle News, LinkedIn, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Chicago Weather Center, Maryland National Road Association, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their own domain names and freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for business 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 blog posts per second (around 1.5 million per day).
WordPress.com provides a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity
In other posts, we will compare the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 free WordPress plugins from the WordPress plugins directory …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
We have written a detailed article about WP plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free WP themes …
(WordPress.org free themes repository)
For a detailed article about WordPress themes go here:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress languages)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, 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 is searched 5 x more than Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of all WP users who participated in 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, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to dominate the CMS market.
In other articles, we will address the following:
- Why WordPress is the best option when it comes to choosing a vehicle to grow your business online,
- Over fifty reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed breakdown of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted visitors, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide many step-by-step tutorials and examples on how to use WordPress to grow your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
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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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