This blog post is part of an article series designed to help you succeed online.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this article, we present some WordPress usage facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.
WordPress: Some Facts And Statistics
The quick version:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number grows significantly everyday.
- 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 worldwide using a content management system are built with WordPress.
- Over 35,000,000 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 code is continually worked on by volunteers. People from all over the world work on developing and improving WordPress functionality each day.
- WordPress is continually being updated to fix bugs and improve both its features and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy 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 do using WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
A content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical website owners to add, edit and manage content on their site.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, it has become the widely-used self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform in the world, used on millions of websites 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 software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, and Yahoo.com …
(WordPress [hosted version] unique monthly views. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest WordPress CMS usage stats:
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 usage, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more websites are using WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the data changes so often.
For example, at the time this post was published, this is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download number represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites 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 shot up. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, expect to see a much higher download figure … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress 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 versions to date …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new update every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress version releases have a tradition of being named after Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.5 = Billy Strayhorn (February 17, 2005),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
A better question is who doesn’t use WordPress nowadays? All types of enterprises and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.
Giant corporations, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous actors, universities, government sectors, community organizations – even countries are using WordPress blogs …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of businesses, institutions and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Google Ventures, DC Diaper Bank, Dassault Aviation, Group Bouygues, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, Kylie Minogue, Beyoncé, The Sacramento Ballet, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, Kobe Bryant, Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Brand, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, International Relations Online at American University, UCF College of Medicine, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Time Inc., The Australian, IMC TV, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Museum of History, Slow Food Italia, CURE International, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses often choose the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their own domain names and freely 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, WordPress blogs (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new posts per second (around 1.5 million per day).
WordPress publishes a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress.com – Live Activity
In later posts, we discuss the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over almost 40,000 free plugins …
(WordPress plugin directory)
For a detailed article about plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free themes …
(WordPress free themes repository)
For more information about themes see this post:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages in addition to English …
(WP languages)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than 37 million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched online 5 x more than Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of users who responded to the survey stated 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 US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can 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 platform for growing your business online,
- Over fifty compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive breakdown of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted visitors, get more leads, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing ongoing step-by-step tutorials and useful tips and examples of how you can use WordPress to expand your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
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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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