This blog post is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping business owners and non-technical users grow and succeed online using the WordPress CMS.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, we present some facts and figures 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 people and businesses are using WordPress today.
Some Useful Facts And Figures About WordPress Usage
A brief summary:
- WordPress began as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers two formats: a hosted application (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 a new WordPress site.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress. This number grows significantly everyday.
- 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 websites using a CMS application are powered by WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress is continually worked on by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress software each day.
- WordPress is continually being updated to fix bugs and improve both its ease of use and security.
- WordPress delivers 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 almost no limit to what you can build with WordPress.
WordPress Usage
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easier for non-technical users to add, modify and manage content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, WordPress has become the widely-used self-hosted CMS application 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 with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WP CMS usage stats:
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 market share, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more and more websites and blogs are now being built with WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that 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 written, here is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above figures represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their installations to the latest version …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post 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 see a significantly higher download figure … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress developer team 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 one hundred new updates to date …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been released to date)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress version updates are named after Jazz musicians, 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.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
In a nutshell, all different kinds of companies and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about every kind of topic imaginable.
Global corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, colleges, government sectors, local organizations – even countries use WordPress-powered sites …
WP Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of sites, companies and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Google Ventures, Public Storage Canada, GDF SUEZ, Groupe Vivendi, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, Pixies, Beyoncé, The Sacramento Ballet, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, Katie Couric, Channing Tatum, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Washington University’s School of Law, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Time Inc., The New Yorker, InStyle News, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Community Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Olympic Committee, São Paulo Carnival, AIDS Project Rhode Island, 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 prefer to download the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their domain and freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for business uses.
- 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 posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
You can see a live map showing the latest user activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity Around The World
In later tutorials, we cover the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over almost 40,000 free WordPress plugins …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
For more information about plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free themes from the WordPress free themes directory …
(WordPress free themes repository)
For a detailed article about WordPress themes see this post:
Using WordPress In Different Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WP languages)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than 35 million …
(WP-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched five times as much as Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of all WordPress users who participated in the survey said that they make a full-time living off the WordPress CMS. 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 developers and designers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork.com, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see, the growth and popularity of WordPress is predicted to continue for many years to come.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the smartest option in most situations when it comes to choosing a platform for growing your business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed look at the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate more traffic to your website, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide new step-by-step tutorials and useful examples and tips on how you can use WordPress to expand your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on web development and website design costs.
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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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