Tag: WordPress Stats

This blog post is part of an article series aimed at helping you succeed online.

For an overview of the article series, see this post:

• WordPress For Small Business – The Complete Guide To Growing A Business Using WordPress

In this article, we present a number of impressive statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress to power their business websites and blogs and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.

WordPress: Statistics And Market Share

The quick version:

• WordPress started in 2003.
• WordPress offers two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
• 23 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website or blog.
• There are over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows everyday.
• WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world 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 sites worldwide using a CMS application are driven by WordPress.
• Over 37 million searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
• WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
• WordPress code is continually built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world work on developing and improving the WordPress application on an ongoing basis.
• The WordPress core functionality is updated on a regular basis 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 70 languages and dialects.
• The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
• There is almost no limit to what someone can do with WordPress.

WordPress 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 users to add, edit and manage content on their site.

WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, it has become the largest 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 work from home. Despite its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo.com, eBay, and Twitter …

(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)

Consider the following 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 usage, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …

(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)

In fact, more and more sites are now being built on WordPress.

WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the information changes so frequently.

For example, at the time this article was written, here is the 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 updated their WP 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 is already increasing. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you should expect to see a much higher download number … perhaps even an updated version, as the WordPress developer team continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.

Regarding updates, WordPress has made available to users over 100 new updates in its first 11 years of existence …

(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been released to date)

WordPress currently releases a new update every 3-4 months …

(WordPress regularly releases new software updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)

Incidentally, all major WordPress updates are traditionally named in honor of famous Jazz music artists, eg:

• v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
• v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
• v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
• v.3.3 = Sonny Stitt (December 12, 2011),
• v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
• etc …

Who Is Using WordPress?

In a nutshell, all different kinds of organizations and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.

Giant brands, businesses, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, educational institutions, government department sites, not-for-profits – even nations use WordPress blogs …

WordPress Showcase

Here are just some of the businesses, organizations and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:

• Global Brands & Companies: Coca-Cola France, YRC Freight, Dassault Aviation, McDonald’s Singapore, Vogue, etc …
• Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Rush, Nancy Pelosi, Brian Smith, The Sacramento Ballet, Riverdance, William Shatner, Howie Mandel, Russell Brand, etc …
• Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Washington University’s School of Law, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
• Magazines & Media: Tribune Media, The New Yorker, Facebook Newsroom, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
• Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Canadian Olympic Committee, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, CURE International, Amnesty International Korea, etc.

Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).

• Businesses often choose the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their 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, WordPress blogs (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog posts per 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 – Activity Worldwide

In later tutorials, we will look at the main differences 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 free plugins …

(WordPress plugin directory)

For more information about plugins see this post:

• WordPress Plugins – Improve Your Website’s Functionality

WordPress Themes

WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 themes for free …

(WordPress.org themes repository)

For more information about themes see this post:

• A Handy Guide To Understanding WP Themes

WordPress Translations

WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages in addition to English …

(WordPress.org language translations)

Searching Online For WordPress

The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month 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 million …

(WP searches online)

If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched 5 x more than Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.

WordPress Services

According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all users who participated in 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 designers and developers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork.com …

According to Upwork, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is between $10 – $500 …

(Source: Upwork.com)

As you can clearly see, WordPress is poised for continued growth for many years to come.

In other blog posts, we will cover the following areas in detail:

• Why WordPress is the smartest option when it comes to choosing a vehicle for growing your business online,
• Over 50 great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive look at the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
• How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
• How to drive targeted traffic, get more leads and subscribers, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
• Plus, we’ll be providing ongoing step-by-step tutorials and great tips and examples of how to use WordPress to expand your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and website design.

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References:

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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