This blog post is part of a detailed article series aimed at helping small business owners grow online.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this article, you will learn a number of statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their business websites and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress: Some Facts And Figures
The short version:
- WordPress started in 2003.
- WordPress is available as a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows everyday.
- 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 sites worldwide using a CMS application are driven by WordPress.
- Over 30 million searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually built and improved upon by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving WordPress on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress application is continually being updated to fix bugs and improve its ease of use and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what you can build using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Share
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical website owners to add, edit and manage all content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, WordPress has grown to become the most downloaded self-hosted content management system (CMS) in the world, used on millions of sites 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 are home-based. Despite being a distributed company with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique visitors than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo.com, Twitter, and eBay …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following WordPress usage figures:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP usage statistics. 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 and more websites and blogs today are powered by the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the numbers change so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was written, here 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 version …
(WordPress versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this article was being written, the number of downloads has already grown. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, expect to see a much higher figure … perhaps even an updated 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 updates in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been released in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress updates have a tradition of being named after well-known Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
- v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
- v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
In a nutshell, all types of businesses and people use WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.
Well-known brands, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, colleges, government department sites, not-for-profits – even nations are using WordPress to publish web content and run their official websites …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of sites, institutions and people using WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Google Ventures, YRC Freight, Groupe Renault, McDonald’s Singapore, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Pixies, Brian Smith, The Sacramento Ballet, Snoop Dogg, Katie Couric, Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Brand, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Washington University’s School of Law, Salve Regina University, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Thrive Magazine, The New Yorker, Facebook Newsroom, LinkedIn, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Olympic Committee, São Paulo Carnival, CURE International, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their domain and freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for commercial 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 externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog posts per second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress provides a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity
In other posts, we address 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 WordPress plugins …
(WP free plugins directory)
We have published a detailed article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 themes for free from the WordPress themes directory …
(WordPress.org themes repository)
We have written a detailed article about themes here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org language translations)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than 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 nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of all WP users who answered 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 designers and developers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork.com, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly 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 arena.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the smartest option when it comes to choosing a platform for growing your small business online,
- Dozens of great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed review of the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted traffic to your website, get more leads and subscribers, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing loads of tutorials and tips on how to use WordPress to grow your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and website design.
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References:
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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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)