This article is part of a detailed series of articles designed to help you understand why the WordPress CMS platform can help your business succeed online with the WordPress CMS platform.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this article, you will learn some impressive 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 what kind of people and businesses are using WordPress today.
Statistics And Market Share Of WordPress
In short:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress. This number grows 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 websites worldwide that use a content management system are powered by WordPress.
- Over 30 million searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed as 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 WordPress functionality each day.
- The WordPress core functionality is updated on a regular basis 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 70 international languages and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what you can do with WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Dominance
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical website owners to add, edit 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 most popular 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 work from home. Despite its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, and eBay …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest figures 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 sites today are powered by WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the numbers change so frequently.
For example, at the time this article was published, this is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above numbers represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their installations 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 increased. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will no doubt see a significantly higher figure … perhaps even a newer version, as WordPress continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has made available over one hundred new updates to date …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress version releases are typically named in honor of famous Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
- v.3.7 = Count Basie (October 24, 2013),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
In a nutshell, all kinds of businesses and people from all walks of life use WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.
Well-known corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, educational institutions, government department sites, not-for-profits – even nations are using WordPress blogs …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, organizations and people using WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Google Ventures, Dole, GDF SUEZ, Groupe Vivendi, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Ariana Grande, The Meredith Vieira Show, Justin Bieber, Usain Bolt, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, Dave Matthews Band, Howie Mandel, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, UCF College of Medicine, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Thrive Magazine, The New Yorker, IMC TV, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Olympic Committee, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses clearly prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their own domain and customized to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for business purposes.
- 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 provides a live map that shows user activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity
In other tutorials, we will discuss the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over almost 40,000 free WordPress plugins from the WordPress plugins repository …
(WordPress.org free plugins directory)
We have written a detailed article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 WordPress themes at no cost from the WordPress free themes repository …
(WordPress.org free themes repository)
We have published a great article about themes here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress language translations)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than 37 million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched 5 x more than Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of all users who answered 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 at freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see, WordPress is set for continued growth for a long time to come.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a vehicle for growing your small business online,
- Dozens of great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed breakdown of the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted visitors to your website, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing ongoing step-by-step tutorials and examples of 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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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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