This article is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help you understand why the WordPress content publishing platform can help your business grow online.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, we present a number of impressive statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.
Statistics And Usage Of WordPress
Here is a summary of what we will cover:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world 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 that use a content management system are driven by WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built by volunteers. People from all around the world work on developing and improving WordPress each day.
- The WordPress core software is continually being updated to eliminate bugs and improve its ease of use 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 WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what someone can do with WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical website owners to add, edit and manage content on their site.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the largest self-hosted CMS application in the world, used on millions of websites 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 are home-based. Despite its distributed model and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique views per month than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo.com, and eBay …
(WordPress [hosted] monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following figures on WordPress usage:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress usage figures. 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 are now using the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that even 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 article was published, here 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 recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated 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 increased. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you should expect to see a much higher figure … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress developer community 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 software versions in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available since 2003)
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 traditionally named after famous Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
In a nutshell, all different kinds of enterprises and people use WordPress to blog about everything under the sun.
Leading corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous actors, educational institutions, government sectors, not-for-profits – even countries use WordPress blogs …
WP Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, institutions and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, Dole, Method Products, McDonald’s Singapore, Vogue, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Ariana Grande, Nancy Pelosi, Beyoncé, The Sacramento Ballet, Snoop Dogg, William Shatner, Howie Mandel, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, International Relations Online at American University, UCF College of Medicine, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Time Inc., The New Yorker, IMC TV, Enterprise Magazine, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Olympic Committee, Slow Food Italia, CURE International, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses clearly prefer 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 belonging to the WordPress network (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map showing user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Activity
In other posts, we will discuss the main 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 at no cost …
(WordPress.org free plugins directory)
We have published a comprehensive article about WordPress plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free themes …
(WordPress themes directory)
We have published a great article about themes here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
WordPress Searches
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”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around thirty million …
(WP-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online 5 x as much as Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% 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.com, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow.
In other blog posts, we will cover the following areas of WordPress:
- Why WordPress is the best option when it comes to choosing a vehicle for growing your small business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed look at the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted visitors, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide ongoing ”how to” tutorials and tips of how you can use WordPress and grow your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
Subscribe below & receive 101+ useful WordPress tips that will help grow your business online faster ...
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
***
"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)