This blog post is part of a series of articles designed to help you understand how the WordPress CMS platform can help your small business grow online.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, we present some impressive WordPress statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress to power their business websites and blogs and what kind of people and businesses use WordPress today.
How Popular Is WordPress? Statistics About WordPress
The short version:
- 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 software (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website.
- 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 around the world are built with 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 37 million searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built and improved upon by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving the WordPress software on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress application is continually being updated to eliminate bugs and improve both its ease of use and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages and dialects.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what type of site you can build with WordPress.
WordPress CMS Popularity
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical users to add, edit and manage all content on their site.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the widely-used self-hosted content management system (CMS) in the world, used on millions of websites 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 and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Yahoo, and eBay …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following WP usage figures:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress usage stats. 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 and more sites are being built with WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the numbers change so often.
For example, at the time this article was published, here is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download figures 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 version …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post was being written, the number of downloads has already increased. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will see a much 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.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available to users over one hundred new update versions since 2003 …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress releases have a tradition of being named after famous Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
- v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
- v.3.7 = Count Basie (October 24, 2013),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
Who isn’t using WordPress nowadays? All kinds of organizations and people use WordPress to blog about everything under the sun.
Giant corporations, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous actors, universities, government sectors, local organizations – even nations are using WordPress …
WP Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, companies and people who are using WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Bata, Dole, Dassault Aviation, Group Bouygues, Vogue, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Rush, Nancy Pelosi, Brian Smith, The Sacramento Ballet, The Rolling Stones, Katie Couric, Channing Tatum, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Washington University’s School of Law, Salve Regina University, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Time Inc., Time.com, Facebook Newsroom, LinkedIn, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Chicago Weather Center, São Paulo Carnival, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their domain names and customized 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 self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new posts per second (around 1.5 million per day).
WordPress.com provides a live map showing the latest activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress.com – Activity Around The World
In later tutorials, we look at the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 plugins for free …
(WordPress plugin repository)
We have written a comprehensive article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 WordPress themes for free …
(WP free themes repository)
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 languages)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than 35 million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched 5 x more than Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of WordPress 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 …
According to Upwork, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see, the growth and popularity of WordPress is expected to continue for a long time to come.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is an ideal platform to grow your small business online,
- Over 50 reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed review of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive more visitors, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be regularly posting loads of step-by-step tutorials and examples on how you can use WordPress to grow your business online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and web design.
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Information Sources:
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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