This article is part of an article series designed to help small businesses grow online using the WordPress CMS platform.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this article, you will learn some 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.
WordPress Statistics
In short:
- WordPress began as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress. This number is growing everyday.
- 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 sites worldwide that use a content management system are built with WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is 100% 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. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving the WordPress application on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress software is updated on a regular basis to fix bugs and improve both its features and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what can be built using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Share
A content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical users to add, edit and manage content on their site.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, it has grown to become the most downloaded self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform in the world, used on millions of sites 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 its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique views per month than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
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 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 sites are powered by the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the numbers change so often.
For example, at the time this post was published, this is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download numbers represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their installations to the latest version …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post was being written, the number of downloads has already increased. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you should expect to see a much higher download figure … perhaps even a newer version, as WordPress continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available over one hundred new software updates in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been released in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress releases have a tradition of being named in honor of Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.0 = Miles Davis (January 3, 2004),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
Who isn’t using WordPress nowadays? All different types of businesses and people are using WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.
Giant brands, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous actors, colleges, government department sites, not-for-profits – even countries are using WordPress sites …
WordPress Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of sites, organizations and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Bata, Public Storage Canada, Groupe Renault, Groupe Vivendi, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Rush, Pixies, Beyoncé, Usain Bolt, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, Kobe Bryant, Gabriel Iglesias, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, UCF College of Medicine, Salve Regina University, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Fortune, The New Yorker, Facebook Newsroom, LinkedIn, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Canadian Museum of History, São Paulo Carnival, CURE International, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, 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 prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their domains and customized to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for business use.
- 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 self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
WordPress publishes a live map that shows the latest activity across its hosted service …
WordPress.com – Live Users WorldWide
In later posts, we will present the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 plugins at no cost from the WordPress free plugin directory …
(WordPress.org free plugins repository)
For more information about plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free themes …
(WordPress.org free themes directory)
For a detailed article about themes go here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages in addition to English …
(WordPress languages)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than 37 million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched online 5 x as much as Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of all WordPress users who answered the survey stated that they make a full-time living off WordPress. An earlier survey conducted by WordPress (2012) also found that the average 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 WordPress job cost ranges are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see from the statistics above, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow and dominate in the CMS landscape.
In other blog posts, we will explore the following areas of WordPress in detail:
- Why WordPress is the best vehicle for growing your business online,
- Over 50 reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive review of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted visitors to your website, get more leads and subscribers, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide lots of step-by-step tutorials and examples of how to use WordPress and expand your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and website design.
Subscribe below & receive 101+ useful WordPress tips that will help grow your business online faster ...
Information Sources:
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
***
"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum