This blog post is part of a detailed article series designed to help small business owners grow online using the WordPress platform.
For more information about of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, we present some surprising statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress and what kind of businesses are using WordPress today.
How Popular Is WordPress? Statistics About WordPress Usage
In short:
- 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 software (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows significantly every day.
- 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 websites worldwide using a content management system are built with WordPress.
- Over 35,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress application each day.
- The WordPress software is continually being updated to address 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 plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what can be built with WordPress.
WordPress Usage
A content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easy for non-technical website users to add, modify and manage content on their site.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, it has grown to become the most downloaded 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 work from home. Despite being a distributed company and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo …
(WordPress [hosted version] unique views. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest WP usage statistics:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress usage statistics. 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 powered by the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the information changes so often.
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 latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their sites to the latest release …
(WordPress versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this article was being written, the number of downloads has already shot up. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will see a significantly higher download number … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress 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 in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over one hundred 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 software updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress version releases are typically named in honor of famous 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.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress?
Who isn’t using WordPress nowadays? All different kinds of organizations and people are using WordPress to blog about every kind of topic imaginable.
Well-known corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous musicians, educational institutions, government department sites, not-for-profits – even countries are using WordPress to publish web content and run their official websites and blogs …
WP Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of businesses, institutions and people who are using WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, DC Diaper Bank, Groupe Renault, Groupe Vivendi, Vogue, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Rush, Lily Allen, Beyoncé, The Sacramento Ballet, The Rolling Stones, Kobe Bryant, Gabriel Iglesias, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Washington University’s School of Law, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Tribune Media, The Australian, FiveThirtyEight, Enterprise Magazine, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Chicago Weather Center, Maryland National Road Association, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses clearly prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their own domains and customized to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for commercial applications.
- More than half of all WordPress users use the hosted version on WordPress.com
- In 2014, blogs belonging to the WordPress network (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new blog posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress.com publishes a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Users WorldWide
In later tutorials, we will discuss the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 WordPress plugins at no cost from the WordPress plugins directory …
(WordPress.org free plugins repository)
For more information about WordPress plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 themes at no cost from the WordPress theme repository …
(WordPress free themes directory)
We have written a comprehensive article about WordPress themes here:
Using WordPress In Other Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages in addition to English …
(WP languages)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around 37 million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched five times as much as Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of 33,000 WordPress 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 median hourly rate of WordPress projects is US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see from the information above, the growth of WordPress is predicted to continue for many years to come.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best 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 benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted visitors to your site, get more leads and subscribers, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing loads of step-by-step tutorials and useful examples on how you can use WordPress and expand your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and web design.
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Sources:
The above figures were 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