This blog post is part of a detailed article series designed to help small business owners succeed online using the WordPress content publishing software.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this article, you will learn a number of WordPress usage statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their business websites and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.
WordPress Usage Statistics
The brief version:
- WordPress started in 2003.
- WordPress is available as a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress site.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world 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 content management system are powered by WordPress.
- Over 30 million searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress is continually built by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress software every day.
- The WordPress software is updated on a regular basis to eliminate bugs and improve both its usage and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what someone can do with WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
A content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical users to add, edit and manage content on their site.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the most downloaded self-hosted CMS application 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 work from home. Despite its distributed model and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo.com, and eBay …
(WordPress [hosted] unique visits. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest WP CMS usage stats:
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 today are using the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with the latest statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the data changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was published, here is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download 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 is already increasing. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will no doubt see a much higher number of downloads … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has released over 100 new update versions in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress version updates are traditionally named after well-known Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
A better question is who doesn’t use WordPress? All kinds of businesses and people use WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Popular corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous actors, colleges, government department sites, humanitarian organizations – even countries use WordPress …
WordPress Website Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of businesses, companies and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Factory Jackson, Dole, Dassault Aviation, Groupe Vivendi, Vogue, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Nancy Pelosi, Beyoncé, Dallas Mavericks, The Rolling Stones, Dave Matthews Band, Gabriel Iglesias, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Washington University’s School of Law, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Tribune Media, The Australian, FiveThirtyEight, LinkedIn, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Chicago Weather Center, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, 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 domain and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for business use.
- 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 posts per day).
WordPress.com provides a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Users WorldWide
In later posts, we cover the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 free plugins …
(WordPress.org plugin directory)
For a detailed article about plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 WordPress themes for free …
(WordPress.org free themes repository)
We have written a detailed article about themes here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around 35 million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is 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, one quarter of all 33,000 WP 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 between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see from the facts and figures presented above, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow and dominate in the CMS arena.
In other articles, we will cover the following:
- Why WordPress is the best vehicle to grow your business online,
- Over fifty compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed look at the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive more traffic, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing lots of step-by-step tutorials and tips on how you can use WordPress and grow your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
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Information Sources:
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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