This article is part of a detailed multi-part article series designed to help you understand how the WordPress CMS can help your business grow online.
For more information about of the article series, go here:
In this article, you will learn a number of impressive statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.
Statistics And Market Share Of WordPress
Here is a summary of what we will cover:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number increases every day.
- 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 using a CMS application are driven by WordPress.
- Over 35,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually built and improved upon by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress every day.
- The WordPress application is regularly updated to address bugs and improve its ease of use and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what can be built with WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
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 website owners to add, modify and manage content on their website.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the most popular self-hosted content management system (CMS) 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 work from home. Despite being a distributed company and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest WordPress 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 dominance, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more and more websites are using the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the data changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this post 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 most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their WP installations to the latest release …
(WP versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this article was being written, the number of downloads has already increased. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, expect to see a significantly higher figure … perhaps even an updated version, as the WordPress developer team continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available to users over one hundred new update versions in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress upgrades are traditionally named after well-known Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
- v.3.7 = Count Basie (October 24, 2013),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
A better question is who isn’t using WordPress? All types of companies and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.
Leading brands, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous actors, educational institutions, government sectors, community organizations – even nations are using WordPress to run their official sites …
WP Showcase
Here are just some of the sites, organizations and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Google Ventures, Boardshorts.com, Groupe Renault, Group Bouygues, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, The Meredith Vieira Show, Justin Bieber, Usain Bolt, Snoop Dogg, Dave Matthews Band, Channing Tatum, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, International Relations Online at American University, Washington University’s School of Law, MIT Sloan Management Review, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Thrive Magazine, The Australian, Facebook Newsroom, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Olympic Committee, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses clearly prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their own domain and customized to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used for business 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 externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new blog posts per second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
You can see a live map showing user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress.com – Live Users WorldWide
In other posts, we cover the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 free plugins …
(WordPress.org free plugins repository)
We have published a detailed article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 themes at no cost …
(WordPress free themes directory)
We have published a comprehensive article about WP themes here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress languages)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than 30 million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online five times as much as Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of 33,000 WP users who participated in 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 US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see from the above statistics, WordPress is set for continued growth for many years to come.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a vehicle to grow your business online,
- Over fifty great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed look at the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate more visitors to your website, get more leads and subscribers, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be regularly posting new tutorials and tips on how to use WordPress and expand your business online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and website design.
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References:
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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