This blog post is part of a detailed article series designed to help small business owners succeed online with the WordPress CMS platform.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, you will learn some WordPress usage statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress to power their websites and blogs and what kind of businesses are using WordPress today.
Facts And Figures About WordPress Usage
Here is a summary of what you will learn in this blog post:
- WordPress started in 2003.
- WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress site.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number is growing every day.
- 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 worldwide using a content management system are built with WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is built by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress functionality on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress application is continually being updated to address bugs and improve both its usage and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what you can do using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Popularity
A content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical website owners to add, edit and manage content on their site.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the widely-used self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform 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 having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, eBay, and Yahoo.com …
(WordPress.com unique views. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest WP usage figures:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress usage statistics. Source: trends.builtwith.com/cms)
In terms of CMS market share, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more and more sites are being built with the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the data changes so often.
For example, at the time this article was written, here is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download number represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites to the latest release …
(WordPress versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post was being written, the number of downloads has already grown. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you should expect to see a much 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.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has released over one hundred new software versions in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress upgrades are typically named after well-known Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
- v.3.0 = Thelonious Monk (June 17, 2010),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
A better question is who isn’t using WordPress nowadays? All types of companies and people from all walks of life use WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.
Leading corporations, businesses, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, educational institutions, government sectors, community organizations – even countries are using WordPress sites …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the businesses, organizations and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Google Ventures, Dole, Method Products, Groupe Vivendi, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Lily Allen, Justin Bieber, Usain Bolt, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, William Shatner, Channing Tatum, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, UCF College of Medicine, Salve Regina University, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Tribune Media, Time.com, InStyle News, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Governments, Public Services & Community Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Olympic Committee, Slow Food Italia, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer to download the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their domain names 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 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).
WordPress publishes a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Users WorldWide
In other tutorials, we will look at the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 WP plugins for free from the WordPress plugins repository …
(WordPress.org free plugins repository)
We have published a great article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 WordPress themes for free …
(WordPress.org theme directory)
For a detailed article about WP themes see this post:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around thirty million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched five times as much as Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of 33,000 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 US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see from the above statistics, WordPress is set for continued growth for many years to come.
In other articles, we will explore the following areas:
- Why WordPress is an ideal vehicle for growing your small business online,
- Over fifty great 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 CMS platform,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate more traffic to your site, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be regularly posting loads of ”how to” tutorials and useful examples of how to use WordPress to expand your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and website design.
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References:
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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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum