This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you understand how WordPress can help your small business grow online using the WordPress CMS.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this article, you will learn a number of surprising facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their websites and what kind of people and businesses are using WordPress today.
WordPress: How Popular Is It? Statistics About WordPress
The quick version:
- WordPress started in 2003.
- WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- 22 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. This number increases everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world are powered 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 sites worldwide using a content management system are built with WordPress.
- Over 30,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress is worked on by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world work on developing and improving the WordPress application every day.
- The WordPress application is regularly 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 70 international languages.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what can be built with WordPress.
WordPress Usage
In simple terms, 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 users to add, edit and manage all content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the widely-used self-hosted content management system (CMS) in the world, used on millions of websites and seen 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 views per month than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, and Yahoo.com …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following stats on WordPress CMS usage:
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 dominance, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more websites are powered by the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the data changes so often.
For example, at the time this article 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 updated their WP installations to the latest version …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this post 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, expect to see a much higher figure … perhaps even a newer version, as WordPress continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has released over one hundred new update versions since 2003 …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new update every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress version updates have a tradition of being named after famous Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
In a nutshell, all different kinds of companies and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Popular brands, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous actors, educational institutions, government sectors, not-for-profits – even nations use WordPress to publish web content and run their official sites …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the sites, companies and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Coca-Cola France, Boardshorts.com, Groupe Renault, McDonald’s Singapore, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Lily Allen, Brian Smith, Usain Bolt, The Rolling Stones, Katie Couric, Howie Mandel, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Washington University’s School of Law, Salve Regina University, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Thrive Magazine, The Australian, FiveThirtyEight, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & 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 is available as 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 in their own domains and customized to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used 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 self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new blog posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress.com provides a live map that shows the latest user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity Around The World
In later posts, we look at the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over almost 40,000 free WordPress plugins from the WordPress plugins repository …
(WP plugin repository)
We have written a comprehensive article about WP plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free themes from the WordPress theme directory …
(WordPress.org free themes repository)
For more information about WordPress themes see this post:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around 30 million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched 5 x as much as Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of users who responded to the survey stated 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, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see, WordPress is set for continued growth for a long time to come.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a vehicle to grow 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 the WordPress platform,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate more traffic to your site, get more leads and subscribers, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be regularly posting ongoing step-by-step tutorials and tips of how to use WordPress and grow your business online, and save 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 AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum