This blog post is part of a comprehensive multi-part series of articles designed to help small businesses grow and succeed online.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this article, we present a number of surprising statistics about WordPress 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.
Statistics And Usage About WordPress
In short:
- 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 software (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress site.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows significantly everyday.
- 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 sites worldwide using a CMS application are built with WordPress.
- Over 35,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually worked on by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving the WordPress software each day.
- WordPress is continually being updated to fix bugs and improve both its usage and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 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 type of site you can build 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 easy for non-technical website owners to add, edit and manage content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the widely-used self-hosted blogging tool 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 are home-based. Despite its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo.com, Twitter, and eBay …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WP CMS 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 websites are using the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the numbers change so often.
For example, at the time this post was written, this 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 most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their WP installations to the latest version …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this article was being written, the number of downloads has already shot up. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, expect to see a much higher number of downloads … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress development community 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 100 new updates to date …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress releases are typically named in honor of Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.2 = Stan Getz (May 16, 2007),
- v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
- v.3.7 = Count Basie (October 24, 2013),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
Who isn’t using WordPress nowadays? All different types of companies and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.
Global brands, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, educational institutions, government department sites, community organizations – even nations use WordPress to run their official websites and blogs …
WordPress Web Site Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, companies and people using WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, YRC Freight, Groupe Renault, Groupe Vivendi, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Rush, The Meredith Vieira Show, Brian Smith, The Sacramento Ballet, Snoop Dogg, Blondie, Howie Mandel, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, UCF College of Medicine, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Time Inc., The Australian, IMC TV, CBS New York, etc.
- Governments, Public Services & Community Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Museum of History, Maryland National Road Association, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, 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 software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses clearly prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their domains 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, WordPress blogs (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new blog posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
WordPress provides a live map showing user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress.com – Live Users WorldWide
In later articles, we will look at the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over almost 40,000 free plugins …
(WordPress.org free plugins repository)
For more information about plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free themes from the WordPress free themes directory …
(WP themes repository)
We have written a great article about WP themes here:
WordPress In Different Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, 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 online five times as much as Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of 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 around US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork.com, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best option in most situations when it comes to choosing a platform to grow your small business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive review of the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate more traffic, increase conversions, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide loads of tutorials and great tips on how you can use WordPress and expand your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on website development and web design costs.
Subscribe below & receive 101+ useful WordPress tips that will help grow your business online faster ...
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
***
"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com