This article is part of a detailed article series designed to help you grow a successful business online.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this article, you will learn a number of impressive WordPress usage statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress and what kind of people and businesses use WordPress today.
How Popular Is WordPress? Statistics About WordPress
In short:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted platform (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 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 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 websites that use a CMS application are powered by WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress is continually built by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress software each day.
- The WordPress application is updated on a regular basis 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 languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what you can build with WordPress.
WordPress Market Dominance
A content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical website users to add, edit and manage content on their site.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the most downloaded self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform 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 being a distributed company with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique visitors than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo.com, Twitter, and eBay …
(WordPress [hosted] unique views. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest WordPress CMS usage statistics:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP CMS 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 being powered by the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with statistics on WordPress is difficult because the information changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was published, this is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download numbers represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites to the latest version …
(WordPress versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this post was being written, the number of downloads has already shot up. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you should expect to see a significantly higher number of downloads … perhaps even a different version, as WordPress continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available to users over one hundred new software updates since 2003 …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress version updates are typically named in honor of famous Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.0 = Miles Davis (January 3, 2004),
- v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.3 = Sonny Stitt (December 12, 2011),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
Who isn’t using WordPress? All kinds of organizations and people use WordPress to blog about every kind of topic imaginable.
Leading corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous musicians, universities, government department sites, humanitarian organizations – even countries are using WordPress to run their official websites and blogs …
WordPress Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of sites, institutions and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, YRC Freight, Panic, Groupe Vivendi, Vogue, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Ariana Grande, Pixies, Justin Bieber, Dallas Mavericks, Snoop Dogg, Dave Matthews Band, Channing Tatum, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Washington University’s School of Law, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Tribune Media, Time.com, IMC TV, Enterprise Magazine, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Chicago Weather Center, Maryland National Road Association, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, 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 in their domains and customized to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for business use.
- 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 blog posts per second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map showing user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity Worldwide
In other posts, we will discuss the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 plugins at no cost …
(WP free plugins directory)
For more information about WP plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 WordPress themes for free from the WordPress free themes repository …
(WP themes directory)
We have published a great article about themes here:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org language translations)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around 37 million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online five times more than Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of users who participated in the survey stated that they make a full-time living off WordPress. An earlier survey conducted by WordPress (2012) also found that the median hourly rate of WordPress projects is around US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see from the above information, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to dominate the CMS market.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is an ideal platform to grow your small business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive review of the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive more visitors to your website, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing new step-by-step tutorials and tips of how to use WordPress and grow your business online, while also saving 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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