This blog post is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping you understand why the WordPress platform can help your business succeed online with the WordPress CMS platform.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this article, we present a number of impressive statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.
How Popular Is WordPress? Some Useful Facts And Figures About WordPress
The brief version:
- WordPress began as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers users 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 site.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number is growing everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide 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 built with WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. 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 every day.
- WordPress is regularly updated to fix 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 seventy 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 using WordPress.
WordPress Usage
A content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easy for non-technical users to add, edit and manage all content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the most popular self-hosted content management system (CMS) 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 having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique views per month than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted version] unique visitors. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WP usage stats:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress CMS usage statistics. 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 sites are being built with WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is difficult because the information changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was written, this is the 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 installations to the latest release …
(WordPress versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even 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 significantly higher download number … perhaps even a newer version, as WordPress continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has released over one hundred new software updates in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been released to date)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress version updates are traditionally named after Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
- v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
- v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
- v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress?
Who doesn’t use WordPress nowadays? All kinds of companies and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.
Large corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous actors, universities, government department sites, local organizations – even nations are using WordPress-powered sites …
WP Web Site Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, companies and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, DC Diaper Bank, Dassault Aviation, Groupe Vivendi, Vogue, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Rush, Kylie Minogue, Brian Smith, Dallas Mavericks, Riverdance, Kobe Bryant, Gabriel Iglesias, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, International Relations Online at American University, UCF College of Medicine, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Fortune, The New Yorker, IMC TV, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Chicago Weather Center, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, CURE International, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses often choose the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their own domain names and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for business activities.
- 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 externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
WordPress publishes a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress.com – Live Activity
In other articles, we will examine the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 WP plugins at no cost from the WordPress plugins repository …
(WordPress.org plugin directory)
We have published a great article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 themes at no cost …
(WordPress themes repository)
We have published a great article about WordPress themes here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress language translations)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around 30 million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online five times more than Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of 33,000 WordPress users who responded to the survey said 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 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 between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see, the growth of WordPress is predicted to continue for a long time to come.
In other articles, we will address the following areas in detail:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a vehicle for growing your small business online,
- Over fifty compelling 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 platform,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate more traffic, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide loads of tutorials and great examples on how to use WordPress and expand your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and website design.
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Information Sources:
The information for this article 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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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)