This blog post is part of a comprehensive multi-part series of articles aimed at helping small business owners grow online.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, we present some impressive WordPress facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress to power their websites and what kind of businesses and people are using WordPress today.
Some Impressive Statistics About WordPress Usage
The short version:
- WordPress began as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted application (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. This number grows significantly everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world 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 websites worldwide that use a content management system are built with WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually worked on 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 both its ease of use and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what can be built using WordPress.
WordPress Market Dominance
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easier for non-technical website users to add, edit and manage all content on their website.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the most downloaded self-hosted blogging tool 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 the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WP usage figures:
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 dominance, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more sites are being built on the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with the latest statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the data changes so often.
For example, at the time this article was written, here is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download numbers represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites to the latest version …
(WordPress versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this article was being written, the number of downloads has already shot up. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you should expect to see a much higher download figure … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress community 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 since 2003 …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress upgrades have a tradition of being named after famous Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.3.0 = Thelonious Monk (June 17, 2010),
- v.3.3 = Sonny Stitt (December 12, 2011),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress?
Who isn’t using WordPress nowadays? All types of companies and people use WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.
Global corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, colleges, government sectors, local organizations – even countries use WordPress blogs …
WordPress Web Site Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, companies and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Sony Music, Boardshorts.com, Dassault Aviation, McDonald’s Singapore, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, Lily Allen, Justin Bieber, Usain Bolt, The Rolling Stones, Kobe Bryant, Howie Mandel, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Bates College, MIT Sloan Management Review, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Thrive Magazine, Time.com, IMC TV, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Chicago Weather Center, São Paulo Carnival, CURE International, Amnesty International Korea, 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 in their own domain and customized 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 belonging to the WordPress network (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
WordPress.com publishes a live map that shows user activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Users WorldWide
In other posts, we will address the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over almost 40,000 free WordPress plugins …
(WordPress plugin repository)
We have published a detailed article about WP plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 themes at no cost from the WordPress themes repository …
(WordPress.org free themes repository)
We have published a detailed article about themes here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org language translations)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around thirty-five million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched online five times more than Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of WordPress users who answered 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 at freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see from the above facts and figures, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to dominate the CMS market.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is an ideal vehicle to grow your business online,
- Dozens of great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed breakdown of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive more traffic, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide new step-by-step tutorials and great tips and examples on how you can use WordPress and grow your business online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and web design.
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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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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)