This blog post is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping you understand why WordPress can help your small business grow online.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, we present a number of statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress to power their business websites and what kind of businesses are using WordPress today.
WordPress Statistics
In short:
- WordPress started 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).
- 22 out of every 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows significantly 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 sites worldwide using a content management system are built with WordPress.
- Over 30 million searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress is continually built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving the WordPress application each day.
- The WordPress software is regularly updated to fix 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 seventy international languages and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what someone can do 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 easier for non-technical website users to add, modify and manage all content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of websites 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 and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo …
(WordPress.com unique monthly views. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest statistics on WordPress:
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 market share, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more websites and blogs today are being built with the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with statistics on WordPress is difficult because the numbers change so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was published, this is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download numbers represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their installations to the latest release …
(WordPress versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this article was being written, the number of downloads has already shot up. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you should expect to see a much higher download number … 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 made available to users over 100 new software updates since 2003 …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress upgrades have a tradition of being named in honor of Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
- v.2.2 = Stan Getz (May 16, 2007),
- v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress?
In a nutshell, all types of companies and people from all walks of life use WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.
Well-known corporations, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous musicians, colleges, government department sites, not-for-profits – even countries are using WordPress blogs …
WordPress.org Site Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of sites, organizations and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Bata, Dole, Groupe Renault, McDonald’s Singapore, Vogue, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, Lily Allen, Brian Smith, The Sacramento Ballet, Snoop Dogg, Katie Couric, Howie Mandel, Russell Brand, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, International Relations Online at American University, Washington University’s School of Law, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Time Inc., New York Post, IMC TV, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Community Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Museum of History, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses often choose 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 or sales purposes.
- 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 every second (around 1.5 million per day).
WordPress.com provides a live map that shows the latest activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity Around The World
In other articles, we will compare the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 plugins at no cost …
(WordPress free plugins repository)
For a detailed article about WP plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free themes …
(WordPress.org theme repository)
We have written a comprehensive article about WP themes here:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than 35 million …
(WordPress-related 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 than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all users who responded to the survey stated that they make a full-time living off the WordPress CMS. An earlier survey conducted by WordPress (2012) also found that the median 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.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see, the growth of WordPress is expected to continue for many years to come.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a vehicle to grow your business online,
- Over 50 great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive look at the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted traffic to your website, increase conversions, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing many tutorials and examples on how to use WordPress to expand your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on web development and website design costs.
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Information 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
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