This blog post is part of a comprehensive multi-part article series aimed at helping business owners and non-technical users succeed online using the WordPress platform.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, we present a number of WordPress facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their websites and blogs and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress: Useful Facts And Figures
Below is a summary of what you will learn in this article:
- WordPress began 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 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress site.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress. This number increases everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world are powered 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 worldwide that use a content management system are powered by WordPress.
- Over 30,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is worked on by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress software every day.
- The WordPress core program is updated on a regular basis to address bugs and improve 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 almost no limit to what type of site you can build with WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical 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. WordPress is now the largest self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform 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 are home-based. Despite its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo.com, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest WordPress usage stats:
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 market share, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more websites are powered by the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the numbers change so frequently.
For example, at the time this article was published, this is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above number represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites 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 shot up. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will see a much higher number of downloads … perhaps even an updated version, as the WordPress community 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 updates to date …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been released to date)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress version updates are named after well-known Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.3.0 = Thelonious Monk (June 17, 2010),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
In a nutshell, all different types of enterprises and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Well-known corporations, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous actors, universities, government sectors, not-for-profits – even countries are using WordPress sites …
WordPress Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, institutions and people using WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Coca-Cola France, YRC Freight, Dassault Aviation, Group Bouygues, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Pixies, Brian Smith, Usain Bolt, The Rolling Stones, William Shatner, Gabriel Iglesias, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, UCF College of Medicine, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Time Inc., The Australian, Facebook Newsroom, Enterprise Magazine, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Chicago Weather Center, São Paulo Carnival, CURE International, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses often choose the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their own domain names and customized to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for commercial applications.
- 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 blog posts per 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 posts, we will cover the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 free plugins …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
We have published a comprehensive article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 themes at no cost from the WordPress theme repository …
(WordPress.org theme directory)
We have written a detailed article about WP themes here:
Using WordPress In Other Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around thirty-seven million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched 5 x as much as Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of 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 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, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see from the facts and figures above, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow and dominate in the CMS market.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is an ideal platform for growing your small business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed review of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted visitors, get more leads, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing new step-by-step tutorials and useful tips and examples of how to use WordPress and expand your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and website design.
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Sources:
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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