This blog post is part of a comprehensive multi-part article series aimed at helping small business owners succeed online using the WordPress CMS.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this article, we present a number of surprising WordPress statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their business websites and blogs and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.
WordPress: Statistics And Popularity
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 software (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 increases 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 driven by WordPress.
- Over 35,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. 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 around the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress application every day.
- The WordPress application is continually being updated to eliminate bugs and improve both its ease of use 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 WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what you can build using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Share
A content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical website owners to add, edit and manage all content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the largest self-hosted blogging tool 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 so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, and Yahoo.com …
(WordPress.com unique monthly views. Source: Automattic.com)
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 websites today are powered by the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the data changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was published, here is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download figures represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their installations to the latest release …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post was being written, the number of downloads has already increased. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will no doubt see a much higher download number … perhaps even a newer version, as WordPress continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has released over 100 new software versions in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been made available since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress updates have a tradition of being named in honor of Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.0 = Miles Davis (January 3, 2004),
- v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
- v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
- v.3.7 = Count Basie (October 24, 2013),
- 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 under the sun.
Giant brands, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, colleges, government department sites, not-for-profits – even nations are using WordPress …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of sites, institutions and people who are using WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Coca-Cola France, Public Storage Canada, Method Products, Group Bouygues, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Rush, Pixies, Justin Bieber, Dallas Mavericks, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, Kobe Bryant, Channing Tatum, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, UCF College of Medicine, MIT Sloan Management Review, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Fortune, Time.com, IMC TV, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Olympic Committee, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer to download the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their own 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 belonging to the WordPress network (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 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 (Hosted Version) – Live Activity
In later posts, we will present the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 plugins for free from the WordPress plugins repository …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
We have published a comprehensive article about WordPress plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 WP themes at no cost from the WordPress free themes repository …
(WordPress.org themes directory)
For more information about WP themes see this post:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org language translations)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of online searches 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 five times as much as Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all 33,000 users who answered the survey said that they make a full-time living off the WordPress CMS. 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 at freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $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 blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is an ideal platform for growing your business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed look at the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted traffic, increase conversions, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide lots of ”how to” tutorials and great examples of how to use WordPress to expand your business online, while also saving 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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