This article is part of an article series aimed at helping you grow a successful business online.
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In this blog post, we present some WordPress usage facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress and what kind of people and businesses use WordPress today.
How Popular Is WordPress? Statistics About WordPress Usage
Here is a summary of what you will learn in this blog post:
- WordPress began as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (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 well over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows everyday.
- 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 websites using a content management system are built with WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually built and improved upon by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving WordPress functionality on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress application is regularly updated to eliminate 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 languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what you can build using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Share
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, edit 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. It is currently the most downloaded self-hosted blogging tool 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 are home-based. Despite being a distributed company and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Yahoo, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted] monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WordPress CMS 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 sites today are being built on the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with the latest statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the numbers change so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was written, this is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above number 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 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, you will see a significantly higher figure … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress development team continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has released over 100 new update versions to date …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress 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)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress updates have a tradition of being named after well-known Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
- v.3.7 = Count Basie (October 24, 2013),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress?
A better question is who isn’t using WordPress? All types of companies and people from all walks of life use WordPress to blog about every kind of topic imaginable.
Leading corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, educational institutions, government sectors, local organizations – even countries are using WordPress …
WordPress Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, organizations and people who use WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, YRC Freight, Dassault Aviation, Group Bouygues, Vogue, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Ariana Grande, Lily Allen, Beyoncé, Usain Bolt, Snoop Dogg, Mötley Crüe, Howie Mandel, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, International Relations Online at American University, Bates College, Salve Regina University, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Thrive Magazine, The Australian, Facebook Newsroom, LinkedIn, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Olympic Committee, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Amnesty International Korea, 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 prefer to download the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their domain and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for business activities.
- 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 posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map showing the latest user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress.com – Activity
In later posts, we examine the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 plugins at no cost from the WordPress free plugins repository …
(WP free plugins directory)
We have written a detailed article about WP plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free WordPress themes …
(WP themes repository)
For a detailed article about WordPress themes go here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress language translations)
Searching Online For WordPress
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”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than 30 million …
(WP-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched five times as much as Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of 33,000 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 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 WordPress job cost ranges are 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 best platform for growing your business online,
- Over fifty reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed breakdown of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted traffic to your site, increase conversions, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing many step-by-step tutorials and practical examples and tips of how you can use WordPress to expand your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on website development and website design costs.
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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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