This article is part of a comprehensive multi-part series of articles designed to help you understand why the WordPress content publishing platform can help your business grow and succeed online.
For more information about of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, we present a number of facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their websites and blogs and what kind of people and businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress Usage Statistics
Below is a summary of what you will learn in this blog post:
- 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 a new WordPress website.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number is growing every day.
- 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 that use a CMS application are powered by WordPress.
- Over 30 million 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 worked on by volunteers. People from all over the world work on developing and improving the WordPress software every day.
- The WordPress software is continually being updated to address bugs and improve its usage and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what you can do with WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Share
A content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical website owners to add, edit and manage all content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the most downloaded self-hosted content management system (CMS) 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 being a distributed company with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, and Yahoo.com …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following statistics on WordPress usage:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP 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 are now being powered by the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping 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 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 installations to the latest version …
(WP versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this article was being written, the number of downloads is already increasing. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you should expect to see a significantly 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.
Regarding updates, WordPress has made available to users over 100 new software versions to date …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress releases are typically named after Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress?
Who isn’t using WordPress nowadays? All types of companies and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.
Well-known corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, educational institutions, government sectors, community organizations – even nations use WordPress to run their official websites …
WordPress.org Site Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, companies and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Sony Music, Dole, Method Products, Groupe Vivendi, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Ariana Grande, Pixies, Justin Bieber, The Sacramento Ballet, Snoop Dogg, Katie Couric, Howie Mandel, Russell Brand, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Bates College, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Tribune Media, The Australian, InStyle News, LinkedIn, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Museum of History, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, CURE International, Amnesty International Korea, 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 domain and freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used for running some kind of commercial purpose.
- 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 new posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
You can see a live map showing the latest user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Activity
In other articles, we will explain the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over almost 40,000 free WP plugins from the WordPress plugin directory …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
We have published a detailed article about WordPress plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free themes …
(WordPress.org themes directory)
For a detailed article about WordPress themes go here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages in addition to English …
(WP language translations)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than thirty million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched 5 x as much as Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all 33,000 WP users who participated in the survey said 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 see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow and dominate in the CMS market.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is an ideal vehicle for growing your small business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive breakdown of the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate more visitors, get more leads and subscribers, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing ongoing step-by-step tutorials and practical examples of how you can use WordPress and grow your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and web design.
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References:
The information for this post 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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