This article is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping you understand why the WordPress CMS platform can help your small business achieve its business goals online using the WordPress platform.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this article, we present 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 people and businesses use WordPress today.
Facts And Figures About WordPress Usage
Below is a summary of what you will learn in this post:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress is available as a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress. This number increases 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 websites worldwide using a CMS application are driven by WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is worked on by volunteers. People from all over the world work on developing and improving the WordPress software every day.
- The WordPress application is updated on a regular basis to fix bugs and improve both its usage and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what someone can do with WordPress.
WordPress CMS Usage
A content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easy for non-technical website users to add, edit and manage all content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the most popular self-hosted content management system (CMS) 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 having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, eBay, and Yahoo …
(WordPress [hosted] unique monthly visitors. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WP usage figures:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP usage statistics. Source: trends.builtwith.com/cms)
In terms of CMS usage, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more websites and blogs today are being built with WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the data changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was written, 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 upgraded their sites to the latest release …
(WordPress versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this article 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 figure … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress development team 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 updates since 2003 …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress version updates have a tradition of being named in honor of famous Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
- v.3.0 = Thelonious Monk (June 17, 2010),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
In a nutshell, all different types of organizations and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.
Popular corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous actors, universities, government department sites, local organizations – even nations are using WordPress-powered sites …
WordPress Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, organizations and people who use WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Factory Jackson, Public Storage Canada, Method Products, Group Bouygues, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, Lily Allen, Justin Bieber, The Sacramento Ballet, The Rolling Stones, William Shatner, Howie Mandel, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, International Relations Online at American University, Washington University’s School of Law, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Fortune, New York Post, IMC TV, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Canadian Olympic Committee, Slow Food Italia, CURE International, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers 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 own domain names and freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are business marketing or sales purposes.
- 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 self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog posts per second (around 1.5 million per day).
WordPress provides a live map showing the latest activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress.com – Live Activity
In later posts, we explain the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 WordPress plugins at no cost from the WordPress free plugin repository …
(WP free plugins directory)
For more information about WordPress plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 WordPress themes at no cost …
(WP free themes directory)
We have written a comprehensive article about WordPress themes here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages in addition to English …
(WordPress languages)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than thirty-seven million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched five times more than Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of all WP users who answered the survey said that they make a full-time living off the WordPress CMS. An earlier survey conducted by WordPress (2012) also found that the average hourly rate of WordPress projects is around US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see from the above statistics, 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, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best vehicle to grow your business online,
- Over 50 reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive review of the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted visitors to your site, get more leads and subscribers, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing new tutorials and tips of how you can use WordPress and grow your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and web design.
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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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"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