This blog post is part of a detailed article series designed to help small businesses grow and succeed online.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this article, we present some surprising statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress to power their business websites and blogs and what kind of businesses are using WordPress today.
WordPress Usage Statistics
The short version:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number is growing every day.
- 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 sites using a CMS application are built with WordPress.
- Over 30 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 distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress is worked on by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world work on developing and improving the WordPress software every day.
- WordPress is continually being updated 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 70 international languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what someone can do using WordPress.
WordPress Usage
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is 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. Since then, WordPress has grown to become the widely-used self-hosted CMS application in the world, used on millions of websites 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 being a distributed company with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo.com, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WordPress usage stats:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress 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 and more websites and blogs are being powered by WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the data changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this article was published, here 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 recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded 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 increased. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will see a significantly higher figure … perhaps even an updated version, as the WordPress developer community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has made available over 100 new software updates to date …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress version releases are named after well-known Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
A better question is who isn’t using WordPress? All kinds of companies and people use WordPress to blog about every kind of topic imaginable.
Large corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous actors, universities, government sectors, not-for-profits – even countries use WordPress blogs …
WordPress.org Website Showcase
Here are just some of the businesses, institutions and people who use WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Factory Jackson, Glad, GDF SUEZ, McDonald’s Singapore, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, The Meredith Vieira Show, Justin Bieber, Dallas Mavericks, Snoop Dogg, Blondie, Howie Mandel, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, UCF College of Medicine, MIT Sloan Management Review, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Fortune, Time.com, Facebook Newsroom, Enterprise Magazine, etc.
- Governments, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Olympic Committee, São Paulo Carnival, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses often choose the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their own domain names and 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 that are part of the WordPress network (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-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 (Hosted Version) – Live Users WorldWide
In other articles, we look at the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 WP plugins for free …
(WordPress.org free plugins repository)
For a detailed article about WP plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 WP themes at no cost from the WordPress themes repository …
(WP free themes repository)
For more information about WP themes go here:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WP language translations)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than thirty million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched online 5 x as much as Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all WordPress 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.com …
According to Upwork.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow and dominate in the CMS arena.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the smartest option when it comes to choosing a vehicle to grow your business online,
- Over 50 great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive look at the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate more traffic, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide lots of tutorials and examples on how you can use WordPress to expand your business online, and save thousands of dollars on website development and web design costs.
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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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"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