This blog post is part of a detailed series of articles aimed at helping small businesses grow and succeed online.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, you will learn some impressive WordPress usage statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress and what kind of people and businesses are using WordPress today.
WordPress: Surprising Facts And Figures
The short version:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number is growing every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world 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 sites worldwide that use a CMS application are powered by WordPress.
- Over 30,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress is continually built and improved upon by volunteers. People from all over the world work on developing and improving the WordPress application every day.
- The WordPress software is continually being updated to fix 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 70 languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what can be built with WordPress.
WordPress Usage
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, edit and manage content on their website.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the most downloaded self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform in the world, used on millions of sites 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 are home-based. Despite its distributed model and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique views per month than Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo …
(WordPress [hosted] unique monthly visitors. 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 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 and more sites are now being built with WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the data changes 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 numbers represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites to the latest version …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this article was being written, the number of downloads has already grown. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will no doubt see a much higher download figure … 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.
Regarding updates, WordPress has made available over 100 new software updates since 2003 …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been released in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress updates are named after famous Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.5 = Billy Strayhorn (February 17, 2005),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
- v.3.7 = Count Basie (October 24, 2013),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
In a nutshell, all kinds of companies and people from all walks of life use WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.
Giant corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, educational institutions, government sectors, not-for-profits – even nations are using WordPress to publish web content and run their official sites …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, companies and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Coca-Cola France, Dole, Groupe Renault, Group Bouygues, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Lily Allen, Beyoncé, Dallas Mavericks, Snoop Dogg, Kobe Bryant, Channing Tatum, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, UCF College of Medicine, MIT Sloan Management Review, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Thrive Magazine, The Australian, FiveThirtyEight, LinkedIn, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Chicago Weather Center, Slow Food Italia, CURE International, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their domains and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used for business 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 self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog posts every 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 (Hosted Version) – Activity Worldwide
In other articles, we will address the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over almost 40,000 free WordPress plugins from the WordPress free plugins repository …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
We have published a detailed article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org themes directory)
For more information about themes go here:
WordPress In Other Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around thirty-five million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched five times more than Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of 33,000 users who answered the survey said 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 US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see from the information above, the dominance of WordPress is expected to continue for a long time to come.
In other articles, we will explore the following:
- Why WordPress is the best vehicle to grow your business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive breakdown of the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive more traffic to your site, get more leads and subscribers, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing new tutorials and examples on how to use WordPress and grow your business online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and website design.
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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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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)