This blog post is part of a multi-part series of articles designed to help small business owners grow and succeed online with WordPress.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, we present some facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress to power their business websites and blogs and what kind of businesses and people are using WordPress today.
WordPress: How Popular Is It? Facts And Figures About WordPress Usage
The brief 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 a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are over sixty 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 that use a content management system are powered by WordPress.
- Over 35,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is completely free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world work on developing and improving the WordPress software on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress application is continually being 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 70 international languages and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what someone can do using 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 easier for non-technical website users to add, modify and manage content on their website.
WordPress began 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 sites 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 WordPress software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, and Yahoo …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
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 …
(WordPress CMS usage stats. 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 today are using WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the numbers change so frequently.
For example, at the time this article was published, here is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download figures represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their sites to the latest version …
(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 were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will no doubt see a much higher download number … 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.
Regarding updates, WordPress has made available over 100 new updates since 2003 …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new update every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress updates have a tradition of being named in honor of famous Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- 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.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
A better question is who doesn’t use WordPress? All different kinds of companies and people are using WordPress to blog about every kind of topic imaginable.
Large brands, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, colleges, government department sites, not-for-profits – even nations use WordPress to publish web content and run their official websites …
WordPress Site Showcase
Here are just some of the businesses, organizations and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Factory Jackson, Glad, Dassault Aviation, Groupe Vivendi, Vogue, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, Kylie Minogue, Brian Smith, The Sacramento Ballet, Riverdance, Katie Couric, Howie Mandel, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Bates College, MIT Sloan Management Review, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Time Inc., New York Post, FiveThirtyEight, CBS New York, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Chicago Weather Center, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, CURE International, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as a hosted application (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 own domain names and customized to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for business activities.
- More than half of all WordPress users use the hosted version on WordPress.com
- In 2014, blogs that are part of 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).
WordPress provides a live map that shows user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress.com – Live Activity
In later posts, we will cover the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 plugins at no cost from the WordPress plugins directory …
(WordPress.org free plugins repository)
We have published a great article about WP plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 themes for free …
(WP free themes repository)
For a detailed article about WordPress themes go here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages in addition to English …
(WordPress language translations)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around thirty-seven million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched five times more than Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of 33,000 WP 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 median hourly rate of WordPress projects is US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see from the above information, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best vehicle to grow your small business online,
- Over 50 reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive review of the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive more traffic to your site, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing loads of ”how to” tutorials and actual examples of how to use WordPress to grow your business online, and save thousands of dollars on web development and website design costs.
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References:
The above figures were 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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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)