This blog post is part of a series of articles designed to help you understand why the WordPress platform can help your business achieve its online goals.
For more information about of the article series, go here:
In this article, we present some WordPress usage statistics 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: Useful Facts And Statistics
In short:
- WordPress began as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number is growing every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide 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 that use a content management system are built with WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 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 built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is built by volunteers. People from all around the world work on developing and improving WordPress functionality on an ongoing basis.
- WordPress is regularly updated to eliminate bugs and improve both its features and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what can be built using WordPress.
WordPress Usage
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 easier for non-technical users to add, edit and manage content on their website.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the widely-used self-hosted blogging tool 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 having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted] monthly uniques. 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 CMS usage statistics. 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 today are powered by WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the data changes so often.
For example, at the time this article was written, here is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above 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 version …
(WP 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 were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will no doubt see a significantly higher figure … perhaps even an updated version, as WordPress continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has released over 100 new software versions in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been released in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress version releases are typically named after well-known Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
- v.3.3 = Sonny Stitt (December 12, 2011),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
A better question is who isn’t using WordPress? All types of businesses and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.
Global corporations, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, colleges, government department sites, community organizations – even countries use WordPress-powered sites …
WordPress Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of sites, organizations and people using WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Factory Jackson, YRC Freight, Method Products, Groupe Vivendi, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Rush, Lily Allen, Beyoncé, The Sacramento Ballet, Riverdance, Katie Couric, Channing Tatum, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Bates College, Salve Regina University, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Thrive Magazine, New York Post, IMC TV, LinkedIn, etc.
- Governments, Public Services & Community Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Olympic Committee, Maryland National Road Association, CURE International, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses often choose the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their own domains and freely 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 externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog posts per second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
You can see a live map that shows the latest user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress.com – Activity Around The World
In later tutorials, we will address the 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 plugins at no cost from the WordPress free plugin directory …
(WordPress.org free plugins repository)
We have written a comprehensive article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 free themes …
(WordPress.org free themes directory)
For more information about WordPress themes see this post:
Using WordPress In Different Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than 35 million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online 5 x more than Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of 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 around US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see, the dominance of WordPress is expected to continue for a long time to come.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the smartest option when it comes to choosing a platform for growing your business online,
- Over fifty reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed look at the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted visitors to your site, get more leads and subscribers, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing ongoing ”how to” tutorials and examples on how to use WordPress to grow your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and website design.
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References:
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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