This article is part of a multi-part article series designed to help small business owners grow online using WordPress.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, you will learn a number of WordPress statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress and what kind of businesses are using WordPress today.
WordPress: Facts And Statistics
Here is a summary of what you will learn in this post:
- 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 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide are driven by 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 that use a CMS application are powered by WordPress.
- Over 35 million searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built by volunteers. People from all around the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress application each day.
- The WordPress core program is continually being updated 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 seventy languages and dialects.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what someone can do using WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easy for non-technical website owners to add, modify and manage all content on their site.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the largest self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform 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 with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, and eBay …
(WordPress.com unique monthly views. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following stats on WordPress:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress CMS 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 and blogs are being powered by the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the numbers change so often.
For example, at the time this post was published, this is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above figures represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their installations 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 grown. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you should expect to see a significantly higher number of downloads … perhaps even a different 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 released over 100 new update versions since 2003 …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress version releases have a tradition of being named in honor of famous Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
A better question is who doesn’t use WordPress nowadays? All different kinds of enterprises and people from all walks of life use WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.
Giant corporations, businesses, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous actors, educational institutions, government department sites, not-for-profits – even countries are using WordPress blogs …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, institutions and people using WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, Glad, Dassault Aviation, Groupe Vivendi, Vogue, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Nancy Pelosi, Beyoncé, The Sacramento Ballet, Snoop Dogg, Mötley Crüe, Howie Mandel, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, International Relations Online at American University, Bates College, Salve Regina University, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Thrive Magazine, Time.com, FiveThirtyEight, Enterprise Magazine, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Chicago Weather Center, Slow Food Italia, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, 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 domains and customized 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, 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 posts per day).
You can see a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress.com – Live Activity
In later articles, we explain the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over almost 40,000 free plugins …
(WordPress free plugins directory)
We have published a comprehensive article about WP plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 WP themes at no cost from the WordPress free theme directory …
(WordPress.org theme directory)
We have published a great article about themes here:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WP languages)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than thirty-five million …
(WP-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online 5 x more than Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of all 33,000 users who answered the survey stated that they make a full-time living off WordPress. 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 …
According to Upwork, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see from the above statistics, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow and dominate in the CMS market.
In other articles, we will cover the following areas of WordPress:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a platform to grow your business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive look at the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate more visitors, get more leads and subscribers, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing new tutorials and tips of how you can use WordPress and expand your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and website design.
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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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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum