This article is part of a detailed article series designed to help business owners and non-technical users succeed online using the WordPress content publishing software.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
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 businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress: How Popular Is It? Some Useful Facts And Figures About WordPress Usage
A brief summary:
- 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 hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress site.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide 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 using a CMS application are driven by WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is worked on by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world work on developing and improving the WordPress software on an ongoing basis.
- WordPress is continually being updated to address bugs and improve its features and security.
- WordPress can deliver your 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 WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what someone can do with WordPress.
WordPress Market Share
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical website owners to add, modify and manage content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, WordPress has grown to become the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of websites 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 the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, and Yahoo.com …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest statistics on WordPress usage:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress usage statistics. 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 and blogs are now powered by the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the numbers change so often.
For example, at the time this article was written, here is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above figures represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites to the latest release …
(WordPress 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, you should expect to see a much higher download number … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available over one hundred new updates since 2003 …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress version releases are traditionally named after well-known Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
- v.2.2 = Stan Getz (May 16, 2007),
- v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
- v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
Who doesn’t use WordPress nowadays? All kinds of companies and people from all walks of life use WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.
Well-known corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, universities, government sectors, not-for-profits – even countries use WordPress sites …
WP Website Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of businesses, companies and people who are using WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Sony Music, DC Diaper Bank, Groupe Renault, Group Bouygues, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, The Meredith Vieira Show, Beyoncé, Dallas Mavericks, The Rolling Stones, Kobe Bryant, Howie Mandel, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, International Relations Online at American University, Washington University’s School of Law, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Tribune Media, Time.com, FiveThirtyEight, Enterprise Magazine, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Community Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Olympic Committee, Maryland National Road Association, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, 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 and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are business marketing or sales 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 new posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
WordPress publishes a live map that shows the latest user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity
In later posts, we examine the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over almost 40,000 free WordPress plugins …
(WordPress.org free plugins directory)
For a detailed article about WordPress plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 themes for free from the WordPress free themes directory …
(WordPress.org theme directory)
We have published a great article about WordPress themes here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WP language translations)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around 30 million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched online five times more than Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of all 33,000 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 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 cost for WordPress jobs is between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to dominate the CMS landscape.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is an ideal vehicle for growing your small business online,
- Dozens of great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your 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 sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing new ”how to” tutorials and tips on how to use WordPress to grow your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on website development and web design costs.
Subscribe below & receive 101+ useful WordPress tips that will help grow your business online faster ...
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
***
"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)