This blog post is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping you understand why the WordPress CMS can help your small business achieve its online goals.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this article, you will learn a number of statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their websites and blogs and what kind of people and businesses use WordPress today.
Some Impressive Statistics About WordPress
A brief summary:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted platform (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 well over 60 million installations of WordPress. This number increases everyday.
- 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 that use a CMS application are driven by WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is built and improved upon by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world work on developing and improving the WordPress application each day.
- The WordPress core program is updated on a regular basis to eliminate 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 70 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 you can build 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 easy for non-technical website owners to add, edit and manage all content on their website.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the most downloaded self-hosted content management system (CMS) 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 its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted version] unique visits. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest statistics on WordPress usage:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP CMS usage statistics. 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 now 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 frequently.
For example, at the time this post was published, this is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above figures represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their sites to the latest version …
(WP versions in current 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 site, you will no doubt see a much higher figure … 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 versions to date …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress upgrades are traditionally named in honor of famous Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
A better question is who isn’t using WordPress? All types of enterprises and people use WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.
Well-known corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, educational institutions, government department sites, humanitarian organizations – even countries are using WordPress …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, organizations and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Factory Jackson, Dole, Dassault Aviation, McDonald’s Singapore, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, Pixies, Beyoncé, Dallas Mavericks, Snoop Dogg, Mötley Crüe, Howie Mandel, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Washington University’s School of Law, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Fortune, New York Post, Facebook Newsroom, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Governments, Public Services & Community Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Chicago Weather Center, Slow Food Italia, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available in two formats: 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 domain and freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for commercial applications.
- 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 self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new posts every 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 Worldwide
In other tutorials, we look at the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 free WP plugins from the WordPress plugin directory …
(WP free plugins directory)
For a detailed article about plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 themes for free from the WordPress themes repository …
(WordPress free themes directory)
For more information about WordPress themes go here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around 35 million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online five times as much as Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all 33,000 WP users who responded to 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 median hourly rate of WordPress projects is around US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see from the statistics above, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best platform to grow your business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive review of the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted traffic, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing many tutorials and practical examples of how you can use WordPress and expand your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on website development and website design costs.
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Information 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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"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)