This blog post is part of an article series aimed at helping small business owners grow and succeed online.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, you will learn a number of WordPress facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.
WordPress: Usage And Popularity
In short:
- WordPress began as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress site.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress. 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 using a CMS application are powered by WordPress.
- Over 30 million searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is built and improved upon by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress application every day.
- The WordPress software is regularly updated to fix bugs and improve its features and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what you can do using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Share
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easier for non-technical users to add, edit and manage content on their site.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, it has grown to become the widely-used 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 being a distributed company with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo.com, Twitter, and eBay …
(WordPress [hosted version] unique monthly views. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WordPress CMS usage stats:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP usage stats. 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 are now being built with the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the numbers change so often.
For example, at the time this article was written, 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 recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites to the latest version …
(WordPress versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this article 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 should expect to see a significantly higher number of downloads … 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 released over 100 new software versions to date …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress updates have a tradition of being named in honor of famous Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
- v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
Who isn’t using WordPress? All types of enterprises and people are using WordPress to blog about every kind of topic imaginable.
Global corporations, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, universities, government sectors, community organizations – even countries use WordPress to run their official sites …
WordPress.org Blog Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of businesses, organizations and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Factory Jackson, Boardshorts.com, Groupe Renault, Group Bouygues, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Ariana Grande, Pixies, Beyoncé, Usain Bolt, The Rolling Stones, Mötley Crüe, Gabriel Iglesias, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Bates College, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Thrive Magazine, The New Yorker, FiveThirtyEight, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Community Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Museum of History, Maryland National Road Association, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, 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 often choose the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their own domain and freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used for marketing and promoting businesses.
- 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).
You can see a live map showing user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Users WorldWide
In other articles, we will examine the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over almost 40,000 free WP plugins from the WordPress plugins directory …
(WP free plugins repository)
For more information about plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 free WP themes …
(WordPress free themes repository)
We have published a detailed article about themes here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org language translations)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than thirty-seven million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched five times more than Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of WP users who answered the survey stated that they make a full-time living off the WordPress CMS. 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 at freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see, the dominance of WordPress is predicted to continue for many years to come.
In other articles, we will explore the following:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a vehicle for growing your small business online,
- Over 50 compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed breakdown of the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted traffic, get more leads, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing many ”how to” tutorials and tips on how to use WordPress to grow your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on website development and website design costs.
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Information Sources:
The information for this article 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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