This blog post is part of an article series designed to help you understand how the WordPress platform can help your business grow and succeed online using the WordPress content publishing application.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this article, you will learn a number of facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress and what kind of businesses and people are using WordPress today.
WordPress Statistics
The quick version:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress site.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide are powered 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 using a content management system are built with WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually built and improved upon by volunteers. People from all over the world work on developing and improving WordPress functionality each day.
- WordPress is continually being updated to address bugs and improve both its ease of use and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages and dialects.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what someone can do using WordPress.
WordPress Usage
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 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. It is currently the most popular self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform 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 work from home. Despite its distributed model and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique visitors than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WP usage stats:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP CMS usage figures. 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 today are using the WordPress CMS platform.
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 post was published, here is the current 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 installations to the latest release …
(WordPress versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this article was being written, the number of downloads has already grown. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will no doubt see a significantly higher download number … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress developer community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has made available over 100 new update versions in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress version releases are named after well-known Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
- v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
- v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
- v.3.7 = Count Basie (October 24, 2013),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
In a nutshell, all different kinds of organizations and people use WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.
Giant brands, businesses, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, educational institutions, government department sites, non-profit organizations – even nations use WordPress to run their official websites …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the sites, companies and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Coca-Cola France, Dole, Dassault Aviation, Groupe Vivendi, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, Nancy Pelosi, Justin Bieber, Dallas Mavericks, Snoop Dogg, Katie Couric, Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Brand, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Washington University’s School of Law, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Thrive Magazine, The New Yorker, Facebook Newsroom, LinkedIn, etc.
- Governments, Public Services & Community Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Chicago Weather Center, São Paulo Carnival, CURE International, Amnesty International Korea, 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 prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their domain names and modified 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 belonging to 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 per day).
You can see a live map that shows user activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity Worldwide
In later posts, we will present the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 WordPress plugins at no cost …
(WordPress plugin repository)
We have written a detailed article about WordPress plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 themes for free from the WordPress themes repository …
(WordPress.org themes repository)
For a detailed article about WordPress themes go here:
WordPress In Other Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages in addition to English …
(WP languages)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around thirty-five million …
(WP-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched 5 x more than Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of 33,000 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.com …
According to Upwork, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see from the facts and figures above, the dominance of WordPress is expected to continue for many years to come.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best option in most cases when it comes to choosing a platform to grow your small business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive review of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted visitors, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing new step-by-step tutorials and great examples on how you can use WordPress to expand your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on web development and website design costs.
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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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