This blog post is part of a detailed multi-part article series aimed at helping small business owners succeed online.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, you will learn some surprising WordPress usage statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their business websites and blogs and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.
Surprising Statistics About WordPress Usage
In short:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress is available as a hosted application (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 site.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number increases 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 worldwide that use a content management system are powered by WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world work on developing and improving the WordPress software every day.
- The WordPress application is regularly 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 seventy international languages and dialects.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what someone can do with WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance 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 site.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the largest self-hosted blogging tool 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 are home-based. Despite its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo.com, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted] unique monthly views. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WordPress CMS usage stats:
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 dominance, 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 keeping up with statistics on WordPress is difficult because the numbers change so often.
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 figure 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 version …
(WP versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post was being written, the number of downloads has already grown. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, expect to see a significantly higher download number … perhaps even a different 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 100 new software versions in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress version updates are named after famous Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
- v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
- v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress?
In a nutshell, all types of enterprises and people use WordPress to blog about everything under the sun.
Giant brands, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, educational institutions, government sectors, community organizations – even nations are using WordPress-powered sites …
WordPress.org Website Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, organizations and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Google Ventures, Public Storage Canada, Dassault Aviation, McDonald’s Singapore, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Rush, Nancy Pelosi, Beyoncé, Dallas Mavericks, Snoop Dogg, Dave Matthews Band, Channing Tatum, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, UCF College of Medicine, MIT Sloan Management Review, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Fortune, Time.com, Facebook Newsroom, LinkedIn, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Olympic Committee, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, CURE International, 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 software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses clearly prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their domains 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 new blog posts per second (around 1.5 million per day).
WordPress.com provides a live map that shows user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress.com – Activity Around The World
In later articles, we cover the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 free WordPress plugins …
(WordPress.org free plugins directory)
We have published a great article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 WordPress themes for free from the WordPress free theme repository …
(WordPress.org free themes repository)
For more information about themes go here:
WordPress In Different Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international 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. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around 35 million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched five times more than Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all 33,000 WordPress users who answered 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 median 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.com, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see from the above information, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to dominate the CMS landscape.
In other blog posts, we will cover the following areas of WordPress:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a platform for growing your business online,
- Dozens of 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 WordPress,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate more visitors, increase conversions, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing ongoing tutorials and tips on how you can use WordPress to expand your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and website design.
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Sources:
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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