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In this article, we present a number of surprising facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress and what kind of people and businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress: How Popular Is It? Facts And Figures About WordPress
In short:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted platform (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 installing a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number increases every day.
- 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 sites using a CMS application are driven by WordPress.
- Over 35 million searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. WordPress is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress is continually worked on by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress functionality on an ongoing basis.
- WordPress is updated on a regular basis to eliminate bugs and improve its features and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what can be built using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Dominance
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical website users to add, modify and manage all content on their website.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, WordPress has become the largest 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 work from home. Despite being a distributed company with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Yahoo.com, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com unique monthly visitors. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following figures on WordPress:
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 usage, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more and more websites are now powered by the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the data changes so often.
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 figures represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites to the latest release …
(WP 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 click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will see a much higher number of downloads … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress development team continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has released over one hundred new software versions to date …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress releases are traditionally named in honor of Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.5 = Billy Strayhorn (February 17, 2005),
- v.2.2 = Stan Getz (May 16, 2007),
- v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
- v.3.3 = Sonny Stitt (December 12, 2011),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
In a nutshell, all kinds of companies and people from all walks of life use WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.
Giant brands, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous actors, educational institutions, government sectors, not-for-profits – even nations are using WordPress to publish web content and run their official websites …
WordPress Blog Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, institutions and people using WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Coca-Cola France, Public Storage Canada, Panic, Groupe Vivendi, Vogue, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Ariana Grande, Nancy Pelosi, Justin Bieber, The Sacramento Ballet, Snoop Dogg, Dave Matthews Band, Gabriel Iglesias, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Washington University’s School of Law, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Fortune, The New Yorker, Facebook Newsroom, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Olympic Committee, São Paulo Carnival, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as 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 on their domain names and customized to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for commercial purposes.
- 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 blog posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress.com provides a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Activity
In later articles, we will address the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 WP plugins at no cost …
(WordPress free plugins directory)
We have published a detailed article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 themes at no cost from the WordPress theme directory …
(WordPress themes directory)
We have published a comprehensive article about themes here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages in addition to English …
(WordPress languages)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around 30 million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online 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 all WP users who responded to the survey said 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, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see from the information presented above, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best vehicle for growing your business online,
- Over 50 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,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate more visitors to your site, get more leads and subscribers, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing lots of ”how to” tutorials and actual tips and examples of how to use WordPress to expand your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
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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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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)