This blog post is part of a detailed article series aimed at helping you succeed online with the WordPress platform.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this article, you will learn a number of surprising statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress to power their business websites and blogs and what kind of businesses and people are using WordPress today.
WordPress: Useful Facts And Statistics
A brief summary:
- WordPress started 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 hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress site.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number is growing everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide are driven 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 built with WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed as 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 updated on a regular basis to fix bugs and improve its usage and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what you can do using WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
A content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical website users to add, edit and manage content on their site.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the most downloaded self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform in the world, used on millions of sites 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 work from home. Despite being a distributed company with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, Twitter, and eBay …
(WordPress.com unique visitors. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest figures on WordPress CMS usage:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP usage stats. 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 using the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the information changes so often.
For example, at the time this post was published, here is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above figures represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their WP 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 has already grown. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, expect to see a much higher figure … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress developer community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has released over 100 new software updates since 2003 …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress releases are named in honor of Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
In a nutshell, all types of organizations and people use WordPress to blog about everything under the sun.
Large brands, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, universities, government sectors, local organizations – even countries are using WordPress to publish web content and run their official websites …
WordPress.org Website Showcase
Here are just some of the businesses, companies and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, Dole, Groupe Renault, Groupe Vivendi, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Nancy Pelosi, Justin Bieber, The Sacramento Ballet, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, William Shatner, Gabriel Iglesias, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Bates College, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Time Inc., Time.com, IMC TV, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Museum of History, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, CURE International, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as 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 in their own domain and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used for running some type of business.
- 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 posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress.com – Live Users WorldWide
In other articles, we will present the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over almost 40,000 free WordPress plugins …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
For a detailed article about WordPress plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 themes at no cost …
(WP free themes directory)
For more information about WordPress themes go here:
Using WordPress In Different Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages 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. Additional 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 37 million …
(WP 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 Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of 33,000 WordPress users who responded to the survey said that they make a full-time living off the WordPress CMS. An earlier survey conducted by WordPress (2012) also found that the average hourly rate of WordPress projects is US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers 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 clearly see from the facts and figures presented above, WordPress is poised for continued growth for many years to come.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best option in most cases when it comes to choosing a platform for growing your small business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed breakdown of the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted visitors, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing loads of step-by-step tutorials and actual tips on how to use WordPress and grow your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
Subscribe below & receive 101+ useful WordPress tips that will help grow your business online faster ...
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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