This article is part of a comprehensive multi-part series of articles aimed at helping you succeed online.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this article, you will learn some facts and figures about WordPress 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 businesses and people are using WordPress today.
How Popular Is WordPress? Statistics About WordPress Usage
A brief summary:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (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 installing a new WordPress site.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress. This number grows every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide 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 worldwide using a content management system are powered by WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually built and improved upon by volunteers. People from all around the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress application each day.
- The WordPress software is regularly updated to eliminate bugs and improve both its usage and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what type of site you can build 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 users to add, modify and manage content on their website.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the most downloaded self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform in the world, used on millions of websites 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 being a distributed company and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo.com, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following WP CMS usage stats:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress usage figures. Source: trends.builtwith.com/cms)
In terms of CMS market share, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more websites and blogs today are being built with the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the information changes so frequently.
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 figure represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their sites to the latest release …
(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 will see a much higher figure … perhaps even an updated version, as the WordPress development team 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 updates since 2003 …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress releases are traditionally named in honor of Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
- v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
A better question is who isn’t using WordPress nowadays? All different types of organizations and people are using WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.
Global corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, educational institutions, government department sites, not-for-profits – even countries are using WordPress blogs …
WP Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of sites, institutions and people using WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Factory Jackson, YRC Freight, Groupe Renault, McDonald’s Singapore, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Rush, Lily Allen, Beyoncé, Dallas Mavericks, Riverdance, William Shatner, Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Brand, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Bates College, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Tribune Media, New York Post, FiveThirtyEight, LinkedIn, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Community Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Chicago Weather Center, Slow Food Italia, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses clearly prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their own domains and customized to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used for business sites.
- 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 posts per second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
You can see a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress.com – Activity Around The World
In other articles, we will present the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 WordPress plugins for free …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
For more information about plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 free themes from the WordPress theme repository …
(WP free themes directory)
We have published a comprehensive article about themes here:
WordPress In Other Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages in addition to English …
(WordPress language translations)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than thirty-five million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched five times as much as Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all 33,000 WordPress users who answered the survey stated 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 US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to dominate the CMS market.
In other blog posts, we will explore the following areas of WordPress:
- Why WordPress is the best platform for growing your business online,
- Over fifty compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive look at the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive more visitors, get more leads and subscribers, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing ongoing tutorials and examples on how to use WordPress to expand your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on web development and website design costs.
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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
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