This blog post is part of a detailed multi-part article series aimed at helping you succeed online.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this article, we present some WordPress facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their websites and what kind of people and businesses are using WordPress today.
WordPress: Impressive Facts And Figures
A brief summary:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress offers two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress. This number is growing 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 using a CMS application are built with WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built and improved upon by volunteers. People from all over the world work on developing and improving WordPress on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress application is regularly updated to eliminate bugs and improve both its features and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy 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 you can do using WordPress.
WordPress Market Share
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easier 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. It is currently the most popular self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform in the world, used on millions of sites and seen 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 having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo …
(WordPress.com unique views. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest WordPress CMS usage figures:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress CMS usage figures. 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 are now using WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is difficult because the numbers change so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was written, here 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 upgraded their sites 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 is already increasing. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, 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 released over 100 new software updates in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: 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.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress?
In a nutshell, all different types of businesses and people are using WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.
Giant brands, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous actors, educational institutions, government sectors, local organizations – even nations use WordPress to run their official sites …
WordPress Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, organizations and people who are using WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Factory Jackson, Dole, Panic, Group Bouygues, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Ariana Grande, Lily Allen, Justin Bieber, The Sacramento Ballet, The Rolling Stones, Kobe Bryant, Channing Tatum, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Washington University’s School of Law, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Time Inc., Time.com, IMC TV, Enterprise Magazine, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Museum of History, São Paulo Carnival, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, 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 clearly 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 business marketing activities.
- 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 new blog posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress.com – Live Activity
In later posts, we discuss the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 plugins for free …
(WordPress.org plugin directory)
For a detailed article about WordPress plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free themes from the WordPress themes directory …
(WordPress.org themes directory)
For more information about themes see this post:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WP language translations)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around 37 million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched 5 x more than Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of all 33,000 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 average 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 cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see, the growth of WordPress is expected to continue for a long time to come.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a vehicle for growing your small business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed look at the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted traffic, get more leads and subscribers, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing new step-by-step tutorials and tips of how you can use WordPress to grow your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on website development and website design costs.
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Information Sources:
The above figures 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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"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