This blog post is part of a detailed series of articles aimed at helping you grow a successful business online.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this article, you will learn a number of impressive facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress and what kind of businesses are using WordPress today.
Statistics And Usage Of WordPress
In short:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number increases everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide 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 content management system are built with WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving WordPress functionality on an ongoing basis.
- WordPress is updated on a regular basis to address bugs and improve both its ease of use and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what can be built with WordPress.
WordPress CMS Popularity
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 users to add, modify and manage all content on their site.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, WordPress has become the widely-used self-hosted CMS application 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 its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, Twitter, and eBay …
(WordPress.com unique views. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest WP usage statistics:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress 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 using WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with statistics on WordPress is very 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 recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their installations to the latest release …
(WP versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this article 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, expect to see a much higher number of downloads … 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 to users over one hundred new software updates to date …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress updates are typically named after famous Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
- v.3.0 = Thelonious Monk (June 17, 2010),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
In a nutshell, all different types of businesses and people use WordPress to blog about every kind of topic imaginable.
Popular corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, educational institutions, government department sites, humanitarian organizations – even countries use WordPress sites …
WP Showcase
Here are just some of the businesses, institutions and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Coca-Cola France, Glad, Method Products, Group Bouygues, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Rush, Lily Allen, Brian Smith, Dallas Mavericks, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, Katie Couric, Gabriel Iglesias, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, International Relations Online at American University, Washington University’s School of Law, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Time Inc., The New Yorker, InStyle News, CBS New York, etc.
- Governments, Public Services & Community Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Olympic Committee, São Paulo Carnival, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer to download the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their domains and modified 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 self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map showing the latest user activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Activity
In other tutorials, we will examine the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 WordPress plugins for free from the WordPress free plugins repository …
(WP plugin directory)
For more information about plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 free WP themes from the WordPress free themes repository …
(WP free themes directory)
For more information about WordPress themes go here:
Using WordPress In Different Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress languages)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP 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 more than Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of 33,000 users who responded to 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 US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see, WordPress is poised for continued growth for a long time to come.
In other blog posts, we will cover the following areas:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a vehicle to grow your business online,
- Over 50 reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed review of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate more visitors to your site, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide new tutorials and tips of how you can use WordPress to grow your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on website development and website design costs.
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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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