This blog post is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping you understand how the WordPress platform can help your small business achieve its business goals online.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, we present some surprising WordPress usage facts and figures 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: Useful Facts And Statistics
In short:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress offers two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website.
- There are 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 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 sites that use a content management system are driven 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. WordPress is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress each day.
- The WordPress software is continually being updated to address bugs and improve both its usage and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages.
- 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 with WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Dominance
A content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easier for non-technical users to add, edit and manage all content on their site.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the largest self-hosted content management system (CMS) 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 are home-based. Despite being a distributed company and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WP usage statistics:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress usage statistics. Source: trends.builtwith.com/cms)
In terms of CMS market share, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more sites today are being built on WordPress.
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 written, 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 recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their installations to the latest release …
(WP versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this article 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, you will no doubt see a much higher number of downloads … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress development community 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 software updates since 2003 …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress version updates are typically named after Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.7 = Count Basie (October 24, 2013),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
In a nutshell, all different types of organizations and people from all walks of life use WordPress to blog about every kind of topic imaginable.
Well-known corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, universities, government department sites, humanitarian organizations – even nations use WordPress …
WP Website Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of sites, institutions and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Coca-Cola France, Public Storage Canada, Dassault Aviation, Group Bouygues, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, The Meredith Vieira Show, Brian Smith, Dallas Mavericks, Riverdance, William Shatner, Howie Mandel, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, International Relations Online at American University, Washington University’s School of Law, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Time Inc., Time.com, IMC TV, Enterprise Magazine, etc.
- Governments, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Chicago Weather Center, Maryland National Road Association, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, 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 own domains and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used for running some form of commercial activity.
- 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 new blog posts per second (around 1.5 million per day).
WordPress.com provides a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress.com – Live Activity
In other tutorials, we will present the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 plugins at no cost …
(WordPress free plugins directory)
We have written a great article about WordPress plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 WordPress themes at no cost from the WordPress free theme directory …
(WordPress.org free themes repository)
For more information about themes see this post:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org language translations)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around thirty-five million …
(WordPress 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 often than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of 33,000 WordPress 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 developers and designers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see, 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 address the following areas of WordPress in detail:
- Why WordPress is the best vehicle for growing your small business online,
- Over 50 great 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 marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive more visitors, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing loads of step-by-step tutorials and examples of how to use WordPress and expand your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on web development and website design costs.
Subscribe below & receive 101+ useful WordPress tips that will help grow your business online faster ...
References:
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
***
"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie