This article is part of a detailed article series aimed at helping small business owners grow and succeed online with the WordPress content publishing platform.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, you will learn some impressive WordPress usage facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress and what kind of businesses are using WordPress today.
Some Useful Statistics About WordPress Usage
The short version:
- 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 software (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows significantly 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 sites worldwide using a content management system are driven by WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is worked on by volunteers. People from all around the world work on developing and improving the WordPress application on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress core application is regularly updated to fix 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 and dialects.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what can be built using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Dominance
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical users to add, edit and manage all content on their website.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the most popular self-hosted blogging tool 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 the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Yahoo.com, and eBay …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following WordPress usage statistics:
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 market share, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more and more sites are being powered by WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the information changes so frequently.
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 numbers represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their sites to the latest release …
(WordPress versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this article was being written, the number of downloads has already shot up. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will see a much 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.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available to users over one hundred new updates to date …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress updates are typically named after Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
- 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 Uses WordPress
Who isn’t using WordPress nowadays? All kinds of companies and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Popular corporations, businesses, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, universities, government department sites, not-for-profits – even nations are using WordPress …
WordPress.org Web Site Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, organizations and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Bata, Public Storage Canada, Panic, McDonald’s Singapore, Vogue, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, Nancy Pelosi, Beyoncé, The Sacramento Ballet, The Rolling Stones, William Shatner, Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Brand, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, UCF College of Medicine, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Time Inc., Time.com, IMC TV, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Chicago Weather Center, São Paulo Carnival, CURE International, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses clearly 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 set up for commercial 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 per second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map that shows the latest user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress.com – Activity
In later articles, we address the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 free WP plugins …
(WordPress free plugins repository)
For a detailed article about WordPress plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 WP themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org themes directory)
For a detailed article about themes see this post:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress 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”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of searches online 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 online five times as much as Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of WordPress users who responded to the survey said that they make a full-time living off WordPress. 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, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see, WordPress is poised for continued growth for a long time to come.
In other blog posts, we will cover the following areas of WordPress in detail:
- Why WordPress is the smartest option when it comes to choosing a vehicle to grow your business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed breakdown of the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted visitors, increase conversions, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing new ”how to” tutorials and examples of how to use WordPress and expand your business presence 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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