This blog post is part of a comprehensive multi-part series of articles designed to help you understand how the WordPress content publishing application can help your small business achieve its online goals.
For more information about of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, you will learn some facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their websites and blogs and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.
WordPress Usage Statistics
Here is a summary of what this article will cover:
- WordPress started 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 one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress site.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number is growing every day.
- 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 websites worldwide using a CMS application are powered by WordPress.
- Over 30,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress is continually built and improved upon by volunteers. People from all around the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress software each day.
- The WordPress core functionality 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 seventy languages and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what someone can do using WordPress.
WordPress Usage
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 all content on their site.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, WordPress has grown to become the largest self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform in the world, used on millions of sites 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 its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo …
(WordPress [hosted] monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest stats on WordPress:
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 usage, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more websites are now being built on the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the numbers change so frequently.
For example, at the time this article was written, this is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download numbers represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their WP installations to the latest version …
(WordPress versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even 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 site, expect to see a significantly higher figure … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress development community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available to users over one hundred new software updates to date …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress releases are traditionally named after Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.2 = Stan Getz (May 16, 2007),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
Who isn’t using WordPress nowadays? All different types of organizations and people use WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.
Large brands, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, colleges, government department sites, local organizations – even nations use WordPress sites …
WordPress Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, organizations and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, YRC Freight, Groupe Renault, McDonald’s Singapore, Vogue, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Rush, Lily Allen, Beyoncé, The Sacramento Ballet, The Rolling Stones, Blondie, Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Brand, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Washington University’s School of Law, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Time Inc., New York Post, IMC TV, LinkedIn, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Chicago Weather Center, Slow Food Italia, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, 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 domain and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for commercial 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).
WordPress.com provides a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress.com – Activity Worldwide
In other posts, we discuss the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over almost 40,000 free plugins from the WordPress free plugin repository …
(WP free plugins repository)
We have published a comprehensive article about WordPress plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free themes from the WordPress themes repository …
(WordPress.org free themes directory)
We have published a great article about themes here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around thirty million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched online 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, a quarter of 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 developers and designers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see from the statistics above, the growth of WordPress is expected to continue for a long time to come.
In other articles, we will cover the following areas:
- Why WordPress is the smartest option in most situations when it comes to choosing a vehicle to grow your small business online,
- Over fifty reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive review of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted traffic to your website, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing lots of tutorials and tips of how you can use WordPress to grow your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on website development and website 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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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum