This blog post is part of a multi-part series of articles aimed at helping small business owners grow online.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, we present some WordPress usage facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress to power their websites and blogs and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.
Useful Statistics About WordPress Usage
Here is a summary of what we will cover:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress is available as 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 website or blog.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows significantly 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 websites using a CMS application are built with WordPress.
- Over 30,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is worked on by volunteers. People from all around the world work on developing and improving WordPress every day.
- The WordPress core software is regularly updated to address 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 virtually no limit to what you can build using WordPress.
WordPress Market Dominance
A content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical website owners to add, edit and manage content on their site.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the largest 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 are home-based. Despite being a distributed company and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique visitors than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo.com, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest statistics on WordPress:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress 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 websites are now being powered by the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping 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 most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their sites to the latest version …
(WordPress versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post was being written, the number of downloads is already increasing. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will see a much higher download number … perhaps even an updated 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 100 new update versions since 2003 …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress upgrades have a tradition of being named in honor of well-known Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.5 = Billy Strayhorn (February 17, 2005),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
In a nutshell, all kinds of businesses and people are using WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.
Large corporations, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, universities, government department sites, not-for-profits – even countries use WordPress-powered sites …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, organizations and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Sony Music, YRC Freight, Panic, McDonald’s Singapore, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Rush, Kylie Minogue, Brian Smith, The Sacramento Ballet, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, Katie Couric, Channing Tatum, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, UCF College of Medicine, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Tribune Media, The New Yorker, IMC TV, LinkedIn, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Community Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Museum of History, Slow Food Italia, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer to download the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their own domains and freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for business applications.
- 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 self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress provides a live map that shows the latest activity across its hosted service …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity
In later tutorials, we compare the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 plugins for free …
(WP free plugins repository)
We have written a great article about WP plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 WordPress themes at no cost …
(WP free themes repository)
We have published a comprehensive article about WP themes here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than 35 million …
(WP-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched online five times as much as Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of all 33,000 WordPress users who participated in 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 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 between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow.
In other blog posts, we will cover the following areas of WordPress in more detail:
- Why WordPress is the best option in most situations when it comes to choosing a platform for growing your small business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed review of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted visitors, increase conversions, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide lots of ”how to” tutorials and examples of how you can use WordPress and 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 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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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group