This article is part of a detailed multi-part article series designed to help business owners and non-technical users grow and succeed online using the WordPress platform.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this article, we present a number of WordPress usage statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress to power their business websites and what kind of people and businesses use WordPress today.
Surprising Statistics About WordPress Usage
A brief summary:
- WordPress began as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 23 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 is growing everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide are built with 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 built with WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually worked on by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress application on an ongoing basis.
- WordPress is regularly updated to eliminate bugs and improve both its usage and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what you can build using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Popularity
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, modify and manage content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the most downloaded self-hosted content management system (CMS) 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 work from home. Despite being a distributed company with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo.com, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com unique visitors. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest WordPress usage figures:
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 dominance, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more websites and blogs are powered by the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the data changes so often.
For example, at the time this article was written, this is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above numbers represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their installations to the latest version …
(WP versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even 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 site, you will see a much higher download figure … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress developer team 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 software versions to date …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been released in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new update every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress releases are typically named in honor of well-known Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
- v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
In a nutshell, all types of businesses and people are using WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.
Leading brands, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous actors, colleges, government department sites, not-for-profits – even nations use WordPress to run their official sites …
WordPress.org Website Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, organizations and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Factory Jackson, Dole, GDF SUEZ, Group Bouygues, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Lily Allen, Justin Bieber, Usain Bolt, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, Katie Couric, Howie Mandel, Russell Brand, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, International Relations Online at American University, Washington University’s School of Law, Salve Regina University, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Time Inc., Time.com, Facebook Newsroom, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Community Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Canadian Museum of History, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (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 and customized 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, WordPress blogs (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 posts per second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map showing the latest activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress.com – Live Activity
In other posts, we address the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 plugins at no cost from the WordPress plugins directory …
(WP free plugins repository)
We have published a comprehensive article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 WordPress themes for free from the WordPress free theme directory …
(WordPress themes repository)
We have written a comprehensive article about WordPress themes here:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages in addition to English …
(WP language translations)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around thirty-five million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online 5 x as much as Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of all 33,000 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 average hourly rate of WordPress projects is US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see from the above facts and figures, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow.
In other blog posts, we will address the following areas of WordPress in more detail:
- Why WordPress is the best platform for growing your small business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive review of the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted traffic, get more leads and subscribers, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing many tutorials and examples on how to use WordPress to grow your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and website design.
Subscribe below & receive 101+ useful WordPress tips that will help grow your business online faster ...
Sources:
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
***
"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now