WordPress – Useful Facts And Statistics

This article is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help you understand how the WordPress CMS platform can help your small business achieve its business goals online.

For more information about of the article series, go here:

• WordPress In Business – An Online Guide To Growing A Successful Business With A WordPress Blog

In this article, we present some WordPress statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their business websites and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.

Some Useful Statistics About WordPress

In short:

• WordPress started in 2003.
• WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
• 23 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website.
• There are over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number increases 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 sites worldwide that use a content management system are built with WordPress.
• Over 37,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
• The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is built using an open source content management system.
• WordPress is built and improved upon by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving WordPress every day.
• The WordPress core software is regularly updated to fix bugs and improve both its ease of use and security.
• WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages and dialects.
• The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
• There is virtually no limit to what can be built using WordPress.

WordPress CMS Market Share

A content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easier for non-technical website owners to add, edit and manage all content on their site.

WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the most downloaded self-hosted CMS application in the world, used on millions of sites 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 so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo.com, and eBay …

(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)

Here are just some of the latest WP CMS usage stats:

WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …

(WordPress usage stats. 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 websites and blogs are powered by the WordPress CMS application.

WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with the latest statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the information changes so frequently.

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 figure represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their WP installations to the latest release …

(WordPress versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)

As this article was being written, the number of downloads has already grown. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, expect to see a much higher figure … perhaps even a newer 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 100 new software versions in its first 11 years of existence …

(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available to date)

WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months …

(WordPress regularly releases new software updates named after famous Jazz musicians)

Incidentally, all major WordPress updates are typically named in honor of Jazz musicians, eg:

• v.1.0 = Miles Davis (January 3, 2004),
• v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
• v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
• v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
• v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
• etc …

Who Uses WordPress?

In a nutshell, all different types of enterprises and people are using WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.

Global brands, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, colleges, government sectors, not-for-profits – even countries use WordPress-powered sites …

WordPress.org Showcase

Here are just some of the sites, companies and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:

• Businesses & Corporations: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, Public Storage Canada, Method Products, Groupe Vivendi, Vogue, etc …
• Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, Nancy Pelosi, Beyoncé, Usain Bolt, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, Katie Couric, Gabriel Iglesias, Jason Mraz, etc …
• Colleges & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Washington University’s School of Law, Lafayette College, etc.
• Magazines & Online Media: Fortune, The New Yorker, Facebook Newsroom, LinkedIn, etc.
• Governments, Public Services & Community Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Museum of History, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, CURE International, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.

Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (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 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 externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new blog posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).

You can see a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …

WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity

In later tutorials, we compare the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.

Other WordPress Statistics

WordPress Plugins

WordPress users have access to over 37,000 free WordPress plugins from the WordPress free plugin directory …

(WP plugin directory)

We have published a great article about plugins here:

• WordPress Plugins – Expanding Your Web Site’s Features And Functionality

WordPress Themes

WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free WP themes …

(WordPress.org free themes directory)

We have published a detailed article about themes here:

• A Useful Guide To WP Themes

WordPress Translations

WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects in addition to English …

(WordPress.org languages)

Searching Online For WordPress

The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than 37 million …

(WP-related searches online)

If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched 5 x as much as Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.

WordPress Rates

According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of all 33,000 users who answered the survey stated 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 designers and developers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …

According to Upwork, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are between $10 – $500 …

(Source: Upwork.com)

As you can see, the growth of WordPress is expected to continue for many years to come.

In other blog posts, you will learn:

• Why WordPress is the best option when it comes to choosing a vehicle for growing your business online,
• Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive look at the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
• How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
• How to generate targeted traffic, get more leads, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
• Plus, we’ll be providing ongoing ”how to” tutorials and examples on how you can use WordPress and grow your business online, and save thousands of dollars on web 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://wptrainme.com
• 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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