This blog post is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping business owners and non-technical users grow online using the WordPress platform.
For more information about of the article series, go here:
In this article, you will learn a number of surprising facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress to power their websites and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.
WordPress: Some Facts And Statistics
In short:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (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 installing a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress. This number increases everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world 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 websites worldwide using a content management system are powered by WordPress.
- Over 35 million searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is built and improved upon by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress functionality on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress core application is continually being updated to fix bugs and improve both its usage and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what you can do using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Usage
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 all 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 grown to be the most popular self-hosted CMS application in the world, used on millions of websites 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 and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo.com, Twitter, and eBay …
(WordPress [hosted] monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest WordPress CMS usage figures:
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 websites and blogs today are using the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is difficult because the data changes so frequently.
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 figure represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their WP installations to the latest release …
(WP 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 click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will see a significantly higher number of downloads … perhaps even an updated version, as WordPress continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has made available over 100 new updates in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress upgrades are traditionally named after Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.0 = Miles Davis (January 3, 2004),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
In a nutshell, all kinds of organizations and people use WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.
Giant corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, educational institutions, government department sites, humanitarian organizations – even nations use WordPress …
WP Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, institutions and people using WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Sony Music, Public Storage Canada, GDF SUEZ, McDonald’s Singapore, Vogue, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Lily Allen, Brian Smith, The Sacramento Ballet, Riverdance, Katie Couric, Howie Mandel, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, International Relations Online at American University, UCF College of Medicine, Salve Regina University, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Time Inc., New York Post, InStyle News, CBS New York, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Olympic Committee, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, 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 in their own domain names 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, WordPress blogs (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or self-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 (Hosted Version) – Live Users WorldWide
In other articles, we will address the differences 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.org plugin directory)
We have written a detailed article about WordPress plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 themes at no cost from the WordPress free themes directory …
(WP free themes directory)
For more information about themes go here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WP languages)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than 30 million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched five times as much as Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of WP users who answered the survey said that they make a full-time living off the WordPress CMS. 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.com, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see from the above information, WordPress is bound for continued growth for a long time to come.
In other blog posts, we will explore the following areas in more detail:
- Why WordPress is an ideal vehicle to grow your small business online,
- Over 50 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 WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted traffic to your site, increase conversions, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing loads of tutorials and actual examples and tips on how you can use WordPress to expand your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and website design.
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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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