This blog post is part of a detailed multi-part article series aimed at helping small businesses succeed online.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, we present some WordPress usage facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress to power their websites and what kind of businesses and people are using WordPress today.
WordPress: Statistics And Market Share
The brief version:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (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 site.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number increases every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide are powered 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 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.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built and improved upon by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress software each day.
- WordPress is updated on a regular basis to address bugs and improve its features and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what you can do using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Dominance
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical website users to add, edit and manage content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the most downloaded self-hosted CMS application 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 being a distributed company with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo.com, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted version] unique visitors. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following WordPress CMS usage figures:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress usage stats. 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 sites are using the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the numbers change so often.
For example, at the time this post was published, this is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above figures represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their sites to the latest release …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post 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, you should expect to see a much higher number of downloads … perhaps even an updated 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 since 2003 …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress updates are traditionally named in honor of Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.5 = Billy Strayhorn (February 17, 2005),
- v.2.2 = Stan Getz (May 16, 2007),
- v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
A better question is who doesn’t use WordPress nowadays? All types of businesses and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about everything under the sun.
Leading corporations, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, colleges, government sectors, community organizations – even countries use WordPress …
WordPress Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of businesses, companies and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Bata, Public Storage Canada, Method Products, Group Bouygues, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, Pixies, Beyoncé, Usain Bolt, The Rolling Stones, Dave Matthews Band, Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Brand, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, UCF College of Medicine, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Thrive Magazine, Time.com, Facebook Newsroom, LinkedIn, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Museum of History, Slow Food Italia, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses clearly prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their domain names and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are business marketing or sales purposes.
- More than half of all WordPress users use the hosted version on WordPress.com
- In 2014, blogs that are part of the WordPress network (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new posts per second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
You can see a live map that shows user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity
In other posts, we examine the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 WordPress plugins for free …
(WordPress free plugins directory)
For a detailed article about WP plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free WP themes …
(WordPress themes repository)
For a detailed article about WP themes go here:
WordPress In Different Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages in addition to English …
(WP languages)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around thirty-seven million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched five times more than Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all 33,000 WP users who participated in 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 US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see from the statistics above, WordPress is bound for continued growth for many years to come.
In other blog posts, we will cover the following areas of WordPress in detail:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a vehicle for growing your small business online,
- Over 50 reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed look at the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate more traffic to your website, get more leads and subscribers, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing many step-by-step tutorials and examples on how to use WordPress and expand your business online, and save thousands of dollars on website development and website design costs.
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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
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)