This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles designed to help business owners and non-technical users grow online with WordPress.
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 and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress Usage Statistics
Here is a summary of what we will cover:
- WordPress began as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers users 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 installing a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number increases every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide are driven 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 CMS application are driven by WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually built and improved upon by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world work on developing and improving the WordPress application on an ongoing basis.
- WordPress is continually being updated to eliminate bugs and improve both its features 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 almost no limit to what you can build using WordPress.
WordPress Usage
A content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easy for non-technical website users to add, modify and manage content on their website.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, WordPress has grown to become the widely-used self-hosted CMS application 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 visitors than Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest WordPress usage stats:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP 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 and blogs are using the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the data changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this article was published, this is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download figures represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their WP installations to the latest version …
(WP versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this article was being written, the number of downloads is already increasing. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you should expect to see a significantly higher download figure … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress developer community 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 in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been released to date)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress version releases are named in honor of Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.5 = Billy Strayhorn (February 17, 2005),
- v.2.2 = Stan Getz (May 16, 2007),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
In a nutshell, all kinds of companies and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Popular brands, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, universities, government sectors, not-for-profits – even nations are using WordPress-powered sites …
WordPress.org Website Showcase
Here are just some of the sites, organizations and people who use WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Sony Music, Boardshorts.com, Dassault Aviation, McDonald’s Singapore, Vogue, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Rush, Lily Allen, Beyoncé, The Sacramento Ballet, Snoop Dogg, Blondie, Channing Tatum, Russell Brand, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Washington University’s School of Law, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Time Inc., The New Yorker, IMC TV, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Chicago Weather Center, Slow Food Italia, CURE International, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses often choose the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their domain names and freely modified 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, 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 per day).
You can see a live map that shows user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Activity
In later articles, we look at the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over almost 40,000 free WordPress plugins from the WordPress plugins directory …
(WordPress.org free plugins repository)
We have published a detailed article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 WordPress themes for free …
(WordPress.org theme directory)
We have written a comprehensive article about themes here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org language translations)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than thirty million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched 5 x as much as Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of all WP users who responded to the survey said 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.com, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see, the growth of WordPress is expected to continue for many years to come.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best option when it comes to choosing a platform to grow your small business online,
- Over fifty reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed look at the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted traffic to your site, increase conversions, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be regularly posting loads of ”how to” tutorials and examples on how you can use WordPress and expand your business online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and web design.
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Information 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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