This blog post is part of a detailed article series aimed at helping you understand how the WordPress platform can help your business achieve its online goals.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, you will learn some surprising statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their business websites and what kind of people and businesses are using WordPress today.
Some Facts And Figures About WordPress
In short:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted platform (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 a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number grows everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide 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 powered by WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress is continually worked on by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress every day.
- The WordPress core functionality is updated on a regular basis to fix bugs and improve both its features and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages and dialects.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what can be built using WordPress.
WordPress Usage
A content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical website users to add, modify 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 widely-used self-hosted CMS application 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 visitors than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, and eBay …
(WordPress [hosted] unique monthly visits. Source: Automattic.com)
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 usage, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more and more sites are now powered by the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with the latest statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the data changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was written, this 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 updated their WP installations to the latest version …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even 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 page, expect to see a significantly higher number of downloads … perhaps even an updated version, as the WordPress development community 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 software versions in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress updates are traditionally named in honor of well-known Jazz musicians, 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.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
Who doesn’t use WordPress nowadays? All types of organizations and people are using WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.
Large brands, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, educational institutions, government sectors, not-for-profits – even countries are using WordPress blogs …
WP Showcase
Here are just some of the sites, organizations and people using WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Coca-Cola France, YRC Freight, Dassault Aviation, Group Bouygues, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, Lily Allen, Brian Smith, Usain Bolt, Riverdance, Mötley Crüe, Channing Tatum, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, International Relations Online at American University, Bates College, MIT Sloan Management Review, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Tribune Media, New York Post, InStyle News, Enterprise Magazine, etc.
- Governments, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Museum of History, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer to download 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 business marketing 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 posts per day).
WordPress publishes a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity Worldwide
In later posts, we present the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over almost 40,000 free WordPress plugins …
(WordPress.org plugin directory)
For a detailed article about WordPress plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free WordPress themes …
(WordPress.org themes repository)
For a detailed article about themes see this post:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WP languages)
WordPress Searches
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 tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around thirty million …
(WP-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched 5 x as much as Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of 33,000 users who responded to the survey stated that they make a full-time living off WordPress. An earlier survey conducted by WordPress (2012) also found that the average 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 job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see from the above information, WordPress is poised for continued growth for many years to come.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a vehicle for growing your business online,
- Over 50 compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive breakdown of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive more visitors, get more leads and subscribers, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide ongoing tutorials and examples of how to use WordPress to expand your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on website development and web design costs.
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References:
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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"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)