This blog post is part of an article series aimed at helping you understand how the WordPress CMS can help your business grow online.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this article, you will learn some facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress to power their websites and blogs and what kind of people and businesses are using WordPress today.
WordPress: Some Facts And Figures
In short:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number increases 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 worldwide using a content management system are built with WordPress.
- Over 35,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built and improved upon by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress software every day.
- The WordPress application is updated on a regular basis to fix bugs and improve its features and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what someone can do using WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
A content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical website owners to add, edit and manage all 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 downloaded 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 software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, and Yahoo …
(WordPress.com unique monthly visitors. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WP usage stats:
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 and blogs are being built with WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the numbers change so frequently.
For example, at the time this article was published, here is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download figure represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites to the latest version …
(WordPress versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even 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 page, you will see a significantly higher number of downloads … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress developer team continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has released over one hundred new updates since 2003 …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress version releases are typically named in honor of Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.3.0 = Thelonious Monk (June 17, 2010),
- v.3.7 = Count Basie (October 24, 2013),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
In a nutshell, all kinds of organizations and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.
Well-known brands, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous actors, educational institutions, government sectors, non-profit organizations – even countries use WordPress sites …
WordPress.org Blog Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, companies and people using WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Coca-Cola France, DC Diaper Bank, Groupe Renault, Group Bouygues, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Nancy Pelosi, Justin Bieber, The Sacramento Ballet, Riverdance, Mötley Crüe, Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Brand, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, UCF College of Medicine, MIT Sloan Management Review, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Fortune, The Australian, FiveThirtyEight, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Canadian Olympic Committee, Maryland National Road Association, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available in 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 in their own domain 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, blogs that are part of the WordPress network (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
You can see a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity
In later tutorials, we will examine the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 plugins for free …
(WordPress.org free plugins directory)
For a detailed article about plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 themes for free from the WordPress free themes repository …
(WordPress.org themes repository)
We have published a great article about themes here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around thirty-five million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched online five times more than Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all WordPress users who responded to the survey stated 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 around US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see from the facts and figures presented above, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow.
In other blog posts, we will explore the following:
- Why WordPress is the best vehicle for growing your business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed review of the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive more traffic, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide loads of tutorials and tips on how to use WordPress and expand your business online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and web design.
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Information Sources:
The above statistics 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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