This article is part of a detailed series of articles aimed at helping you succeed online with the WordPress CMS platform.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, you will learn some surprising facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress and what kind of businesses and people are using WordPress today.
Surprising Statistics About WordPress Usage
A brief summary:
- WordPress started in 2003.
- WordPress offers two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (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 sixty million installations of WordPress. This number is growing 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 powered by WordPress.
- Over 30,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually worked on by volunteers. People from all around the world work on developing and improving the WordPress application on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress software is updated on a regular basis to fix bugs and improve both its features and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy 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 with WordPress.
WordPress Market Share
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 started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, it has become the largest 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 its distributed model and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo …
(WordPress.com unique views. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest figures on WordPress:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress CMS usage figures. 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 and more sites are now using WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the numbers change so often.
For example, at the time this post was published, this is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above number represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their WP installations to the latest release …
(WP versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this article was being written, the number of downloads is already increasing. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will no doubt see a significantly higher download figure … perhaps even an updated version, as the WordPress developer community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available over 100 new update versions since 2003 …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress version updates have a tradition of being named in honor of famous Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.3.0 = Thelonious Monk (June 17, 2010),
- v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
In a nutshell, all types of businesses and people are using WordPress to blog about everything under the sun.
Well-known brands, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, educational institutions, government sectors, not-for-profits – even nations are using WordPress to run their official websites and blogs …
WordPress Blog Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of sites, institutions and people who are using WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, Dole, Dassault Aviation, Groupe Vivendi, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Ariana Grande, Pixies, Justin Bieber, Dallas Mavericks, Riverdance, Dave Matthews Band, Howie Mandel, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, International Relations Online at American University, Washington University’s School of Law, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Thrive Magazine, The Australian, Facebook Newsroom, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Museum of History, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, CURE International, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer to download the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their domains and 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 belonging to the WordPress network (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map showing the latest activity across its hosted service …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Users WorldWide
In other articles, we will address the differences 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 WordPress plugins for free …
(WP plugin repository)
For a detailed article about WP plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free WP themes from the WordPress theme directory …
(WordPress.org theme repository)
For a detailed article about WP themes see this post:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org language translations)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than thirty-seven million …
(WP 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 than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of WordPress 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 median hourly rate of WordPress projects is around US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to dominate the CMS market.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best vehicle for growing your small business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive breakdown of the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate more visitors to your site, get more leads and subscribers, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide many tutorials and examples of how to use WordPress and grow your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on web development and website design costs.
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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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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group