This article is part of a detailed multi-part series of articles aimed at helping small business owners succeed online with WordPress.
For more information about of the article series, go here:
In this article, we present a number of impressive statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress: How Popular Is It? Useful Statistics About WordPress
A brief summary:
- WordPress began 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 installing a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number increases every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide 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 websites worldwide that use a CMS application are powered by WordPress.
- Over 30 million searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress is continually built and improved upon by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress software on an ongoing basis.
- WordPress is continually being updated to eliminate bugs and improve its features and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what you can do with WordPress.
WordPress Usage
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easier for non-technical website users to add, edit and manage content on their website.
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 websites 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 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 visitors than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo.com, and eBay …
(WordPress [hosted version] unique visitors. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest figures on WordPress:
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 and more websites and blogs are now being built with WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the information changes so often.
For example, at the time this article was written, this is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above number represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites 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 site, you should expect to see a much higher number of downloads … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress community 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 software updates to date …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been released to date)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress updates are traditionally named in honor of famous Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- 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 nowadays? All kinds of companies and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about everything under the sun.
Global brands, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous musicians, educational institutions, government department sites, not-for-profits – even countries are using WordPress to publish web content and run their official sites …
WP Web Site Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, organizations and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, Dole, Dassault Aviation, McDonald’s Singapore, Vogue, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Rush, Lily Allen, Beyoncé, Dallas Mavericks, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, Dave Matthews Band, Channing Tatum, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, UCF College of Medicine, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Fortune, The Australian, FiveThirtyEight, LinkedIn, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Community Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Museum of History, Maryland National Road Association, CURE International, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses clearly prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their domain names and freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for business uses.
- 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 externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog posts per second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
You can see a live map showing user activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress.com – Live Activity
In other posts, we explain 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 WordPress plugins at no cost from the WordPress free plugins directory …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
For a detailed article about plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 WP themes for free from the WordPress free theme repository …
(WordPress.org theme directory)
For a detailed article about themes go here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages in addition to English …
(WP languages)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around 30 million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched 5 x as much as Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of 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 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, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see, WordPress is bound for continued growth for many years to come.
In other blog posts, we will address the following areas of WordPress in detail:
- Why WordPress is the smartest option in most situations when it comes to choosing a platform to grow your small business online,
- Dozens of great 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,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive more traffic, get more leads, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be regularly posting loads of step-by-step tutorials and great examples on how to use WordPress and grow your business online, and save thousands of dollars on website development and website design costs.
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Information Sources:
The above figures 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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