This blog post is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help small business owners succeed online using the WordPress content publishing platform.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this article, we present some facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress and what kind of businesses are using WordPress today.
WordPress Usage Statistics
Below is a summary of what we will cover:
- WordPress started in 2003.
- WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted platform (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 a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows significantly everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world 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 sites worldwide using a CMS application are powered by WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually worked on by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress functionality each day.
- The WordPress software is updated on a regular basis to eliminate bugs and improve its usage and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what can be built with WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical website owners to add, modify 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 largest self-hosted CMS application 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 are home-based. Despite its distributed model and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique visitors than Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo.com, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted] unique monthly visitors. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest WordPress usage figures:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP CMS usage stats. 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 and more websites today are being built on 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 published, this is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above number represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their installations to the latest version …
(WordPress versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this article was being written, the number of downloads has already shot up. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will see a much higher download number … perhaps even a newer version, as WordPress continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has released over 100 new software updates to date …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been released in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress upgrades are named in honor of well-known Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
Who isn’t using WordPress nowadays? All types of enterprises and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.
Giant corporations, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous musicians, universities, government sectors, local organizations – even nations are using WordPress …
WordPress Site Showcase
Here are just some of the sites, institutions and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, Public Storage Canada, Groupe Renault, McDonald’s Singapore, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, The Meredith Vieira Show, Brian Smith, Usain Bolt, Riverdance, Katie Couric, Howie Mandel, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, International Relations Online at American University, Bates College, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Tribune Media, Time.com, IMC TV, LinkedIn, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Chicago Weather Center, São Paulo Carnival, 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 prefer to download 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 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 self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new posts per second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map that shows the latest user activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity Around The World
In later articles, we will look at the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over almost 40,000 free WordPress plugins from the WordPress plugins directory …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
For more information about WP plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 WordPress themes at no cost from the WordPress theme directory …
(WordPress free themes directory)
For a detailed article about themes see this post:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages and dialects 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. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around thirty-five 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 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Services
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 developers and designers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see from the above statistics, WordPress is set for continued growth for many years to come.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the smartest 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 comprehensive breakdown of the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- 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 regularly posting loads of ”how to” tutorials and tips of how you can use WordPress to grow your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and website design.
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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
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group