This article is part of a detailed series of articles designed to help you succeed online with the WordPress platform.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this article, we present some WordPress usage statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress and what kind of businesses and people are using WordPress today.
WordPress: Useful Facts And Figures
In short:
- 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 site.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number increases every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world 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 that use a CMS application are built with WordPress.
- Over 30,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world work on developing and improving WordPress each day.
- The WordPress application is regularly updated to fix bugs and improve its features and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what you can do using WordPress.
WordPress CMS 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 website owners to add, modify 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. It is currently 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 its distributed model and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo.com, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following 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 market share, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more and more sites today are using WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the data changes so often.
For example, at the time this post was written, this is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download figures represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their WP installations to the latest version …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this article 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 figure … perhaps even an updated 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 released over 100 new updates in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress upgrades are named in honor of Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
- v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress?
In a nutshell, all different kinds of businesses and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Global corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, educational institutions, government department sites, community organizations – even countries are using WordPress blogs …
WordPress Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, organizations and people using WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, Boardshorts.com, Panic, McDonald’s Singapore, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Rush, Lily Allen, Brian Smith, Usain Bolt, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, Katie Couric, Channing Tatum, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, International Relations Online at American University, UCF College of Medicine, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Fortune, New York Post, InStyle News, LinkedIn, etc.
- Governments, Public Services & Community Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Museum of History, São Paulo Carnival, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Amnesty International Korea, 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 often choose the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their own domain 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, blogs that are part of the WordPress network (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
WordPress publishes a live map that shows the latest user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress.com – Live Activity
In later tutorials, we will present the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 plugins at no cost …
(WordPress.org free plugins directory)
We have written a comprehensive article about WP plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 themes at no cost from the WordPress free themes directory …
(WordPress free themes directory)
We have published a detailed article about themes here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages in addition to English …
(WordPress languages)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than 30 million …
(WP-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online five times more than Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of WordPress users who responded to the survey said 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 by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see from the above statistics, 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 an ideal platform for growing your small business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed review of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive more traffic, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing ongoing step-by-step tutorials and practical tips and examples of how to use WordPress and grow your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on web development and website design costs.
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References:
The information for this article 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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