This blog post is part of a detailed article series aimed at helping you grow a successful business online with the WordPress content publishing platform.
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 and what kind of businesses and people are using WordPress today.
WordPress: Facts And Statistics
The quick version:
- WordPress started in 2003.
- WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted platform (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 60 million installations of WordPress. This number grows significantly every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world 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 websites using a content management system are driven by WordPress.
- Over 30,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. WordPress is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving WordPress functionality on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress software is regularly updated to fix bugs and improve 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 and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what someone can do using WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
A content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical website users to add, edit and manage content on their site.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the largest 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 work from home. Despite its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo.com, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted version] unique visits. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WordPress usage figures:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP CMS 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 sites are being built on the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the information changes so often.
For example, at the time this article was written, this 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 upgraded their WP installations to the latest release …
(WP versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post was being written, the number of downloads has already grown. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will no doubt 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.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available over one hundred new software versions since 2003 …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been released in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress updates are traditionally named after well-known Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
In a nutshell, all different kinds of businesses and people from all walks of life use WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.
Well-known corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, colleges, government department sites, humanitarian organizations – even nations are using WordPress sites …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of sites, organizations and people who use WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, DC Diaper Bank, Method Products, Groupe Vivendi, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Rush, Nancy Pelosi, Brian Smith, The Sacramento Ballet, The Rolling Stones, William Shatner, Gabriel Iglesias, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, International Relations Online at American University, Bates College, Salve Regina University, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Tribune Media, The Australian, FiveThirtyEight, CBS New York, etc.
- Governments, Public Services & Community Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Olympic Committee, São Paulo Carnival, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their domain and freely modified 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 externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
WordPress publishes a live map showing user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Activity
In other tutorials, we look at the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over almost 40,000 free plugins from the WordPress plugins directory …
(WordPress plugin repository)
For more information about WordPress plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free WP themes from the WordPress free themes repository …
(WordPress.org theme repository)
We have written a comprehensive article about WP themes here:
WordPress In Other Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than 37 million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched online five times more than Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of users who participated in 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 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 job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see, WordPress is bound for continued growth for a long time to come.
In other blog posts, we will explore the following areas of WordPress in great detail:
- Why WordPress is an ideal platform to grow your business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed look at the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted visitors to your website, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be regularly posting new tutorials and tips on how to use WordPress to grow your business online, and save thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
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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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