This article is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help you understand how the WordPress content publishing application can help your business succeed online using the WordPress CMS platform.
For more information about of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, you will learn a number of surprising WordPress facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress and what kind of people and businesses are using WordPress today.
WordPress: Statistics And Popularity
Below is a summary of what you will learn in this blog post:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress is available as a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- 22 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 grows significantly 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 sites using a CMS application are driven by WordPress.
- Over 35,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. WordPress is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built by volunteers. People from all over the world work on developing and improving WordPress functionality each day.
- The WordPress application is continually being updated to address bugs and improve its features and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what type of site you can build using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Popularity
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easy for non-technical users to add, edit and manage all content on their site.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the largest self-hosted CMS application 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 the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo.com, Twitter, and eBay …
(WordPress [hosted version] unique views. 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 …
(WordPress 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 and blogs today are being powered by WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the data changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was written, this is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download figure represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites to the latest release …
(WP versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this post 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 significantly higher download number … 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 update versions in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress releases have a tradition of being named after famous Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
- v.3.7 = Count Basie (October 24, 2013),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
In a nutshell, all kinds of enterprises and people from all walks of life use WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.
Global brands, businesses, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous actors, universities, government sectors, not-for-profits – even countries use WordPress …
WP Web Site Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, organizations and people who are using WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Google Ventures, Dole, Groupe Renault, Groupe Vivendi, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Kylie Minogue, Justin Bieber, Dallas Mavericks, The Rolling Stones, Kobe Bryant, Channing Tatum, Russell Brand, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, UCF College of Medicine, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Thrive Magazine, The New Yorker, IMC TV, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Canadian Olympic Committee, Maryland National Road Association, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Amnesty International Korea, 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 in their own domain and modified 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, blogs that are part of the WordPress network (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity Around The World
In later posts, we look at the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 WP plugins at no cost from the WordPress plugin repository …
(WordPress.org free plugins directory)
We have published a detailed article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 WordPress themes for free from the WordPress free theme repository …
(WordPress free themes directory)
We have published a comprehensive article about themes here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than 30 million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online five times more than Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all WP users who answered the survey said that they make a full-time living off the WordPress CMS. 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 by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see, WordPress is bound for continued growth for a long time to come.
In other articles, we will cover the following areas:
- Why WordPress is the smartest option in most cases when it comes to choosing a vehicle to grow your small business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed breakdown of the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- Ways 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 provide lots of ”how to” tutorials and examples of how you can use WordPress to grow your business online, and save thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
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References:
The above statistics 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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