This blog post is part of a detailed series of articles aimed at helping small business owners succeed online.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this article, we present some 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 are using WordPress today.
How Popular Is WordPress? Facts And Figures About WordPress Usage
In short:
- WordPress started in 2003.
- WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number increases 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 websites worldwide using a CMS application are powered by WordPress.
- Over 30 million searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is completely free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world are at work developing and improving WordPress functionality every day.
- The WordPress core functionality is continually being updated to fix bugs and improve its features and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what you can do using WordPress.
WordPress Market Share
A content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easier for non-technical website users to add, modify and manage all content on their site.
WordPress started 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 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 being a distributed company and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, eBay, and Yahoo …
(WordPress [hosted version] 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 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 websites and blogs are being powered by WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the numbers change 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 recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their WP installations to the latest version …
(WordPress versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this article was being written, the number of downloads is already increasing. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will no doubt see a significantly higher download figure … perhaps even an updated version, as the WordPress community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available over 100 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 update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress updates have a tradition of being named in honor of well-known Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
Who doesn’t use WordPress? All different kinds of organizations and people are using WordPress to blog about every kind of topic imaginable.
Popular corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, colleges, government sectors, not-for-profits – even nations use WordPress to run their official websites …
WP Web Site Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, institutions and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Sony Music, DC Diaper Bank, Panic, McDonald’s Singapore, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Nancy Pelosi, Brian Smith, Usain Bolt, The Rolling Stones, Mötley Crüe, Howie Mandel, Russell Brand, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, UCF College of Medicine, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Thrive Magazine, New York Post, Facebook Newsroom, LinkedIn, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Chicago Weather Center, São Paulo Carnival, CURE International, 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 to download 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 use.
- 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 new blog posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity Around The World
In later articles, we cover the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 WP plugins for free …
(WordPress free plugins repository)
For a detailed article about plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free themes from the WordPress free themes directory …
(WordPress.org theme directory)
We have written a comprehensive article about WP themes here:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages in addition to English …
(WordPress language translations)
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”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than 35 million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched five times more than Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of 33,000 WordPress users who answered 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 designers and developers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow and dominate in the CMS arena.
In other articles, we will explore the following areas of WordPress in more detail:
- Why WordPress is the best platform to grow your business online,
- Over 50 compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive look at the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted visitors to your website, get more leads, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be regularly posting ongoing tutorials and actual tips on how to use WordPress to expand your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
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Information Sources:
The information for this post 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)