This blog post is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you understand why the WordPress CMS can help your business achieve its business goals online.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this article, you will learn some impressive WordPress statistics 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 use WordPress today.
WordPress Statistics
Here is a summary of what we will cover:
- WordPress started in 2003.
- WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress site.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide 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 using a content management system are powered by WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is built by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress application every day.
- The WordPress software 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 70 languages.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what can be built using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Popularity
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical users to add, modify and manage all content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the largest self-hosted blogging tool 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 and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique views per month than Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, eBay, and Yahoo …
(WordPress [hosted version] unique monthly visits. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WP CMS usage stats:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP CMS 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 websites today are being built on WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the numbers change so often.
For example, at the time this post was written, here is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above figures represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their WP installations to the latest version …
(WP versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this article was being written, the number of downloads has already grown. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will see a much higher download figure … perhaps even a different version, as WordPress continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has released over 100 new software versions in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been released to date)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress releases are typically named in honor of famous Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
- v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
- v.3.7 = Count Basie (October 24, 2013),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
In a nutshell, all kinds of companies and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Giant corporations, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous musicians, educational institutions, government department sites, not-for-profits – even nations use WordPress-powered sites …
WordPress.org Site Showcase
Here are just some of the businesses, organizations and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Coca-Cola France, Glad, Dassault Aviation, Group Bouygues, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, The Meredith Vieira Show, Brian Smith, Dallas Mavericks, Snoop Dogg, Kobe Bryant, Channing Tatum, Russell Brand, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, International Relations Online at American University, UCF College of Medicine, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Thrive Magazine, Time.com, Facebook Newsroom, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Canadian Museum of History, Maryland National Road Association, CURE International, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer to download the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their own domains and freely 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 self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
WordPress publishes a live map showing the latest activity across its hosted service …
WordPress.com – Live Users WorldWide
In other posts, we will discuss the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 free plugins from the WordPress free plugins repository …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
We have written a comprehensive article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 WP themes at no cost …
(WP free themes repository)
We have published a great article about WordPress themes here:
WordPress In Different Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WP language translations)
WordPress Searches Online
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”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than 35 million …
(WP-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online 5 x more than Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all 33,000 users who answered the survey said that they make a full-time living off WordPress. An earlier survey conducted by WordPress (2012) also found that the median 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 …
According to Upwork.com, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see, the dominance of WordPress is predicted to continue for many years to come.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a platform for growing your small business online,
- Over 50 great 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 WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted traffic to your website, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide many step-by-step tutorials and useful tips of how you can use WordPress and expand your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on website development and web design costs.
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Information Sources:
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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