This blog post is part of a comprehensive multi-part series of articles designed to help you grow a successful business online.
For more information about of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, we present some WordPress facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress and what kind of people and businesses are using WordPress today.
WordPress: How Popular Is It? Facts And Figures About WordPress
The quick version:
- 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 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 increases 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 sites using a CMS application are powered by WordPress.
- Over 35,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built and improved upon by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress functionality each day.
- WordPress is regularly updated to eliminate bugs and improve both 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 practically no limit to what you can do with WordPress.
WordPress Market Share
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easier for non-technical website owners to add, edit and manage content on their site.
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-based publishing platform 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 and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique visitors than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo …
(WordPress.com unique monthly visits. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following figures 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 websites are powered by the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the information changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this article was published, here is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above figure represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their sites to the latest version …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post was being written, the number of downloads has already grown. 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 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 update versions in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been released in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress upgrades are traditionally named after well-known Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
In a nutshell, all types of organizations 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, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous musicians, educational institutions, government sectors, local organizations – even nations use WordPress …
WP Site Showcase
Here are just some of the businesses, companies and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Sony Music, Glad, Method Products, McDonald’s Singapore, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Ariana Grande, Pixies, Justin Bieber, Usain Bolt, Riverdance, Blondie, Howie Mandel, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Bates College, MIT Sloan Management Review, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Fortune, The Australian, InStyle News, LinkedIn, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Chicago Weather Center, Slow Food Italia, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as 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 customized to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used for marketing or promoting businesses.
- 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 externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress.com publishes a live map showing the latest user activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress.com – Activity
In later articles, we will explain the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 free WP plugins from the WordPress free plugins directory …
(WordPress plugin directory)
We have written a comprehensive article about WordPress plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 themes for free …
(WordPress.org free themes repository)
For more information about themes see this post:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress languages)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than 37 million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online five times as much as Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of 33,000 users who participated in 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 US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see from the above information, the growth and popularity of WordPress is predicted to continue for a long time to come.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a platform to grow your business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed breakdown of the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive more traffic, increase conversions, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing new ”how to” tutorials and actual examples of how you can use WordPress to grow your business online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and web design.
Subscribe below & receive 101+ useful WordPress tips that will help grow your business online faster ...
References:
The above figures were 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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