This blog post is part of a detailed multi-part series of articles designed to help small businesses succeed online.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, you will learn some impressive facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress to power their websites and blogs and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.
Some Useful Facts And Figures About WordPress
A brief summary:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website.
- There are over 60 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 websites using a CMS application are powered by WordPress.
- Over 30,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built by volunteers. People from all around the world work on developing and improving the WordPress application each day.
- WordPress is continually being updated to address bugs and improve both its ease of use and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what you can build with WordPress.
WordPress CMS Usage
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical 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 most popular 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 WordPress) currently attracts more unique visitors than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest WP CMS usage statistics:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP 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 are now being built with WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with the latest statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the data changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was published, here is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above figure represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their installations to the latest version …
(WordPress versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post was being written, the number of downloads is already increasing. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you should expect to see a much higher download figure … perhaps even a different 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 over 100 new update versions since 2003 …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress upgrades are typically named after Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
A better question is who doesn’t use WordPress nowadays? All different types of enterprises and people from all walks of life use WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.
Giant corporations, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, educational institutions, government sectors, community organizations – even nations use WordPress to run their official websites and blogs …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the businesses, companies and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Bata, Dole, Panic, Groupe Vivendi, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Rush, Nancy Pelosi, Beyoncé, The Sacramento Ballet, The Rolling Stones, Kobe Bryant, Howie Mandel, Russell Brand, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Washington University’s School of Law, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Fortune, Time.com, InStyle News, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Olympic Committee, Maryland National Road Association, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their own domain and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used for running some type of commercial purpose.
- 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 externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog posts per second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress.com provides a live map showing user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress.com – Live Activity
In other posts, we will cover the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 WordPress plugins at no cost …
(WP plugin directory)
For more information about WordPress plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free WP themes from the WordPress theme directory …
(WordPress themes repository)
For a detailed article about WP themes see this post:
WordPress In Different Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages in addition to English …
(WP language translations)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month 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 …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online five times as much as Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of 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 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.com …
According to Upwork, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see, the dominance of WordPress is predicted to continue for many years to come.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the smartest option in most cases when it comes to choosing a platform for growing your small business online,
- Over fifty reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive look at the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive more visitors, get more leads and subscribers, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide loads of ”how to” tutorials and practical examples and tips of how to use WordPress to grow your business online, and save thousands of dollars on website development and web design costs.
Subscribe below & receive 101+ useful WordPress tips that will help grow your business online faster ...
Information 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
***
"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie