This blog post is part of a detailed article series designed to help small business owners succeed online using the WordPress CMS platform.
For more information about of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, you will learn some WordPress usage statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress to power their websites and blogs and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.
Statistics And Usage About WordPress
Here is a summary of what this blog post will cover:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress is available as a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number is growing 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 that use a content management system are built with WordPress.
- Over 35,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world work on developing and improving WordPress on an ongoing basis.
- WordPress is updated on a regular basis to eliminate bugs and improve its features and security.
- WordPress can deliver your 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 almost no limit to what someone can do using WordPress.
WordPress Usage
A content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical website users to add, edit and manage content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the largest self-hosted content management system (CMS) in the world, used on millions of sites and accessed 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 being a distributed company with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo …
(WordPress [hosted] unique monthly views. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following statistics on WordPress CMS usage:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress CMS usage statistics. 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 websites and blogs are using the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with the latest statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the numbers change so often.
For example, at the time this post was written, this 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 recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their WP installations 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 will no doubt see a significantly higher figure … perhaps even an updated 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 to users over 100 new update versions to date …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been released to date)
WordPress currently releases a new update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress version updates are traditionally named in honor of well-known Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.0 = Miles Davis (January 3, 2004),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.3.0 = Thelonious Monk (June 17, 2010),
- v.3.7 = Count Basie (October 24, 2013),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
A better question is who isn’t using WordPress nowadays? All different kinds of organizations and people from all walks of life use WordPress to blog about everything under the sun.
Global corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous actors, educational institutions, government department sites, humanitarian organizations – even countries are using WordPress to run their official sites …
WordPress.org Website Showcase
Here are just some of the sites, companies and people using WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Sony Music, Boardshorts.com, Method Products, Groupe Vivendi, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Rush, Lily Allen, Brian Smith, Usain Bolt, Snoop Dogg, Dave Matthews Band, Howie Mandel, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, International Relations Online at American University, Bates College, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Thrive Magazine, The Australian, InStyle News, LinkedIn, etc.
- Governments, Public Services & Community Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Museum of History, Slow Food Italia, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, 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 prefer to download the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their domain names and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used for running some kind of business.
- More than half of all WordPress users use the hosted version on WordPress.com
- In 2014, WordPress blogs (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map that shows the latest activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity Around The World
In later posts, we will examine the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 plugins for free …
(WordPress.org plugin directory)
We have written a comprehensive article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free themes from the WordPress free themes repository …
(WordPress.org free themes directory)
For a detailed article about themes go here:
WordPress In Different Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
WordPress Searches Online
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 tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around thirty million …
(WP-related 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 often than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of all WordPress users who responded to 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 designers and developers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow.
In other blog posts, we will address the following areas of WordPress:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a platform for growing your business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive breakdown of the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate more traffic, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be regularly posting new step-by-step tutorials and practical examples and tips of how to use WordPress and grow your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on web development and website design costs.
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Information 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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