This blog post is part of a series of articles aimed at helping small businesses succeed online using the WordPress platform.
For more information about of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, you will learn a number of WordPress usage facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress to power their websites and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.
WordPress: Usage And Market Share
In short:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows significantly every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world 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 websites worldwide using a CMS application are built with WordPress.
- Over 30,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- 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. People from all around the world are at work developing and improving WordPress functionality on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress core software is updated on a regular basis to eliminate bugs and improve both its features and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages and dialects.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what you can build with WordPress.
WordPress Market Dominance
A content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easy for non-technical website users to add, modify and manage content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the most downloaded self-hosted CMS application 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 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 visitors than Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Yahoo.com, and eBay …
(WordPress [hosted version] unique visits. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WordPress usage figures:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP usage figures. 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 and more sites today are being built on WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the information 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 download number represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their installations to the latest release …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this article was being written, the number of downloads is already increasing. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will no doubt see a much higher figure … perhaps even a newer 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 WordPress versions have been released in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress upgrades have a tradition of being named after Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
- v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress?
Who doesn’t use WordPress nowadays? All different kinds of companies and people use WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Well-known brands, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, colleges, government department sites, humanitarian organizations – even countries are using WordPress to run their official sites …
WP Web Site Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of businesses, organizations and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Google Ventures, Boardshorts.com, Method Products, Group Bouygues, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Ariana Grande, Nancy Pelosi, Justin Bieber, The Sacramento Ballet, Snoop Dogg, Kobe Bryant, Channing Tatum, Russell Brand, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, International Relations Online at American University, Bates College, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Tribune Media, Time.com, InStyle News, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Museum of History, Slow Food Italia, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their domains and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used for business 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 blog posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map that shows the latest activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress.com – Activity Worldwide
In other articles, we look at the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 free plugins from the WordPress free plugin repository …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
For a detailed article about WordPress plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 WP themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org free themes directory)
We have written a great article about WordPress themes here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects 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. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around 30 million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched 5 x more than Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of 33,000 users who answered the survey stated 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 around US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see, WordPress is poised for continued growth for a long time to come.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is an ideal vehicle for growing your small business online,
- Dozens of great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed breakdown of the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate more traffic to your site, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide new step-by-step tutorials and examples of how you can use WordPress and grow your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
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Information 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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