This blog post is part of a comprehensive multi-part article series aimed at helping small business owners grow and succeed online with the WordPress platform.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, you will learn a number of impressive statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress and what kind of businesses and people are using WordPress today.
WordPress Statistics
Below is a summary of what you will learn in this blog post:
- WordPress started in 2003.
- WordPress is available as a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every 100 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 significantly 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 sites that use a content management system are powered by WordPress.
- Over 35 million searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually worked on by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world work on developing and improving the WordPress software on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress software is regularly updated to fix 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 seventy languages and dialects.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what someone can do with WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Share
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easier for non-technical website owners to add, modify 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. WordPress is now the most downloaded self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform 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 its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo.com, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com unique monthly visits. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following statistics on WordPress usage:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress 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 websites today are being powered by WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the information changes so often.
For example, at the time this article was published, this is the 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 updated their WP installations to the latest release …
(WordPress versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this article was being written, the number of downloads has already increased. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will no doubt see a significantly higher figure … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress developer community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has made available to users over 100 new updates in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress updates have a tradition of being named in honor of well-known Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.0 = Miles Davis (January 3, 2004),
- v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
- v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
- v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
Who doesn’t use WordPress nowadays? All kinds of businesses and people from all walks of life use WordPress to blog about everything under the sun.
Leading corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous actors, universities, government sectors, community organizations – even nations are using WordPress to run their official sites …
WordPress Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, organizations and people who use WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, Glad, Groupe Renault, McDonald’s Singapore, Vogue, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Lily Allen, Justin Bieber, The Sacramento Ballet, Snoop Dogg, William Shatner, Gabriel Iglesias, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, International Relations Online at American University, Bates College, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Tribune Media, The Australian, IMC TV, Enterprise Magazine, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Canadian Museum of History, São Paulo Carnival, AIDS Project Rhode Island, 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 prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their own domain names and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are business marketing activities.
- 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 blog posts per second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress publishes a live map that shows user activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity Worldwide
In other articles, we will explain the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 plugins for free …
(WordPress.org plugin directory)
For more information about plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 WordPress themes for free from the WordPress free theme repository …
(WordPress.org free themes directory)
We have published a great article about WordPress themes here:
WordPress In Different Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than 35 million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online 5 x as much as Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of 33,000 WP users who participated in the survey said 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 US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow and dominate in the CMS landscape.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best option in most cases when it comes to choosing a platform to grow your small business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed review of the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted traffic, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing loads of tutorials and examples on how you can use WordPress to expand your business online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and website design.
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Information Sources:
The above statistics 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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