This article is part of a comprehensive multi-part series of articles aimed at helping small business owners succeed online using the WordPress CMS.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this article, we present some surprising facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress and what kind of people and businesses use WordPress today.
Statistics And Market Share Of WordPress
In short:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers users the choice of 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 installing a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are well over sixty 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 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 30 million searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually built by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress core program is regularly updated to fix bugs and improve both its ease of use and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what type of site you can build using WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical users to add, modify and manage all content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, it has become the largest self-hosted blogging tool 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 so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo.com, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted version] unique views. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest WP CMS usage statistics:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP usage figures. 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 websites are now using the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that 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, here is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above figure represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their installations to the latest release …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post was being written, the number of downloads has already grown. If you were to 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 developer community 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 one hundred new 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 version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress version updates have a tradition of being named in honor of well-known Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.5 = Billy Strayhorn (February 17, 2005),
- v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
- v.3.0 = Thelonious Monk (June 17, 2010),
- v.3.3 = Sonny Stitt (December 12, 2011),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
Who isn’t using WordPress nowadays? All different kinds of businesses and people are using WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.
Well-known corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, educational institutions, government department sites, humanitarian organizations – even nations use WordPress sites …
WordPress.org Site Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of businesses, companies and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Google Ventures, Glad, Dassault Aviation, Groupe Vivendi, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Rush, Pixies, Justin Bieber, Usain Bolt, The Rolling Stones, Katie Couric, Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Brand, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, UCF College of Medicine, Salve Regina University, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Fortune, The Australian, Facebook Newsroom, LinkedIn, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Museum of History, São Paulo Carnival, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers 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 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 new 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 (Hosted Version) – Activity Around The World
In other articles, we compare the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 plugins at no cost …
(WordPress.org free plugins directory)
For a detailed article about WordPress plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 WordPress themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org free themes directory)
For a detailed article about WordPress themes see this post:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
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 SEO”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around 35 million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online five times more than Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of 33,000 users who answered the survey said that they make a full-time living off WordPress. An earlier survey conducted by WordPress (2012) also found that the median hourly rate of WordPress projects is around 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 around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see, WordPress is poised for continued growth for a long time to come.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is an ideal platform for growing your business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive breakdown of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted visitors to your site, get more leads, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing loads of tutorials and actual tips and examples of how to use WordPress and expand your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and website 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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