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In this article, you will learn some surprising WordPress facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress to power their websites and blogs and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.
How Popular Is WordPress? Statistics About WordPress
The quick version:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers two formats: a hosted platform (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 a new WordPress site.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress. This number grows everyday.
- 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 websites using a content management system are driven by WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches are made on Google each month 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 worked on by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving WordPress functionality on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress application is continually being updated to eliminate bugs and improve both its features and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what you can do with WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Dominance
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 easy for non-technical users to add, edit and manage content on their site.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the largest self-hosted content management system (CMS) 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 work from home. Despite its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo.com, and eBay …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest WP usage figures:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP 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 websites today are being built with WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the data changes so often.
For example, at the time this article 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 most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites 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 increased. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will no doubt see a significantly higher download figure … 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.
Regarding updates, WordPress has made available to users over 100 new update versions to date …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been released to date)
WordPress currently releases a new update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress version updates are traditionally named in honor of well-known Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.3 = Sonny Stitt (December 12, 2011),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
In a nutshell, all different types of organizations and people use WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Well-known corporations, businesses, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, colleges, government department sites, not-for-profits – even nations use WordPress to publish web content and run their official websites and blogs …
WP Website Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, institutions and people who use WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, Glad, GDF SUEZ, Groupe Vivendi, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Ariana Grande, Nancy Pelosi, Brian Smith, The Sacramento Ballet, Riverdance, Katie Couric, Howie Mandel, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, International Relations Online at American University, UCF College of Medicine, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Tribune Media, New York Post, Facebook Newsroom, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Olympic Committee, Slow Food Italia, 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 prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their domains and customized 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 posts per second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map that shows the latest activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress.com – Activity
In other tutorials, we will discuss the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over almost 40,000 free WP plugins …
(WordPress.org plugin directory)
For a detailed article about WP plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 WordPress themes for free from the WordPress free themes directory …
(WordPress.org free themes directory)
We have written a detailed article about WP themes here:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around thirty-five million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online 5 x more than Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of 33,000 users who participated in 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 US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see from the information presented above, WordPress is set for continued growth for a long time to come.
In other articles, we will address the following areas of WordPress:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a platform to grow your business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed review of the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted visitors to your site, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing new ”how to” tutorials and actual examples and tips on how you can use WordPress and grow your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on website development and web design costs.
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Sources:
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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