This article is part of a multi-part article series aimed at helping small businesses succeed online.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this article, you will learn some surprising facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress to power their websites and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress: Some Facts And Figures
In short:
- 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 installing a new WordPress site.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number is growing everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide 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 made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress is continually built and improved upon by volunteers. People from all over the world work on developing and improving the WordPress application each day.
- The WordPress software is updated on a regular basis to eliminate 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 and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what you can do using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Share
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easier for non-technical website users to add, edit and manage content on their site.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, it has become 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 are home-based. Despite being a distributed company with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted] monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following WP CMS usage statistics:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP CMS 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 and more sites are being powered by WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the data changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was written, here is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download number represents only the latest 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)
As this post 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 page, you will no doubt see a significantly higher number of downloads … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress development team continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available over 100 new software updates in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress releases have a tradition of being named in honor of Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.0 = Miles Davis (January 3, 2004),
- v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
- v.3.0 = Thelonious Monk (June 17, 2010),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
A better question is who doesn’t use WordPress nowadays? All types of organizations and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about every kind of topic imaginable.
Well-known corporations, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, universities, government sectors, humanitarian organizations – even nations use WordPress blogs …
WordPress Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of sites, organizations and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Bata, YRC Freight, GDF SUEZ, Groupe Vivendi, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, The Meredith Vieira Show, Brian Smith, Usain Bolt, Riverdance, Blondie, Gabriel Iglesias, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Washington University’s School of Law, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Tribune Media, New York Post, FiveThirtyEight, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Canadian Museum of History, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses clearly prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their own domains and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for business activities.
- More than half of all WordPress users use the hosted version on WordPress.com
- In 2014, blogs belonging to the WordPress network (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new blog posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
You can see a live map that shows the latest user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress.com – Activity
In later articles, we address the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over almost 40,000 free WP plugins …
(WordPress plugin repository)
For more information about plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 free themes …
(WP themes directory)
For a detailed article about themes go here:
Using WordPress In Different Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org language translations)
Searching Online For WordPress
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 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 is searched 5 x more than Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of WP 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 designers and developers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see, the growth and popularity of WordPress is expected to continue for many years to come.
In other blog posts, we will explore the following:
- Why WordPress is an ideal vehicle to grow your business online,
- Dozens of great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed review of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate more visitors to your website, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be regularly posting ongoing tutorials and great examples and tips on how to use WordPress and 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 figures 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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