This article is part of a detailed multi-part series of articles designed to help business owners and non-technical users grow and succeed online using the WordPress content publishing software.
For more information about of the article series, go here:
In this article, you will learn some WordPress statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress and what kind of businesses are using WordPress today.
WordPress: How Popular Is It? Facts And Figures About WordPress
Below is a summary of what you will learn in this blog post:
- WordPress started in 2003.
- WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress site.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number increases 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 sites worldwide that use a content management system are built with WordPress.
- Over 35,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application 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 application is continually being updated to address bugs and improve both its features 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 WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what you can build using WordPress.
WordPress Market Share
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical users to add, edit and manage content on their site.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently 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 are home-based. 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 Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Yahoo, and eBay …
(WordPress.com unique monthly visits. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest WP CMS usage stats:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress CMS usage figures. 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 powered by the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with statistics on WordPress is difficult because the information changes so often.
For example, at the time this article was published, this is the 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 version …
(WordPress versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this post was being written, the number of downloads has already shot up. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, expect to see a significantly higher number of downloads … 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 made available over one hundred new updates in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress version updates have a tradition of being named after famous Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.5 = Billy Strayhorn (February 17, 2005),
- v.2.2 = Stan Getz (May 16, 2007),
- v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
- v.3.3 = Sonny Stitt (December 12, 2011),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
In a nutshell, all different types of organizations and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about every kind of topic imaginable.
Well-known corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, colleges, government sectors, local organizations – even nations are using WordPress blogs …
WordPress.org Site Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of businesses, companies and people who are using WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Coca-Cola France, Boardshorts.com, Groupe Renault, McDonald’s Singapore, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Rush, Pixies, Brian Smith, The Sacramento Ballet, The Rolling Stones, Blondie, Gabriel Iglesias, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Washington University’s School of Law, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Time Inc., The Australian, FiveThirtyEight, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Chicago Weather Center, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, 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 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 marketing and promoting businesses.
- 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 per second (around 1.5 million per day).
WordPress provides a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Users WorldWide
In later tutorials, we discuss the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 free WP plugins from the WordPress plugin directory …
(WordPress.org free plugins repository)
We have written a detailed article about WordPress plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free WP themes from the WordPress theme repository …
(WP themes directory)
We have written a great article about WordPress themes here:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages in addition to English …
(WordPress languages)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around 30 million …
(WP-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched 5 x as much as Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of WP users who answered 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 around US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork.com, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow.
In other articles, we will address the following areas of WordPress in detail:
- Why WordPress is the best option when it comes to choosing a vehicle to grow your small business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive look at the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate more visitors to your site, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be regularly posting many tutorials and tips of how to use WordPress and grow your business presence online, while also saving 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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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum