WordPress – Useful Facts And Statistics

This blog post is part of a comprehensive multi-part article series designed to help you understand why the WordPress platform can help your business succeed online.

For an overview of the article series, go here: WordPress – A Business Owner’s Guide

In this blog post, we present some statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress and what kind of people and businesses use WordPress today.

WordPress: Facts And Statistics

A brief summary:

• WordPress started in 2003.
• WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
• 23 out of every 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress site.
• There are over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number increases everyday.
• Over one-sixth of all websites around the world are driven by WordPress.
• More than 60% of all sites worldwide using a CMS application are powered by WordPress.
• Over 30 million 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 built using an open source content management system.
• WordPress code is continually built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving the WordPress application on an ongoing basis.
• The WordPress core functionality is updated on a regular basis to address bugs and improve its usage and security.
• WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages.
• The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
• There is almost no limit to what you can do using WordPress.

WordPress Popularity

In simple terms, 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 users to add, edit and manage all content on their site.

WordPress started in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the widely-used self-hosted blogging tool 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 being a distributed company and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, and Yahoo …

(WordPress.com unique monthly views. Source: Automattic.com)

Consider the following WP usage stats:

Over 60% of all websites worldwide do not use a CMS. Of those that do, WordPress is the leader, with more than 60% of all market share.

WordPress usage figures

In terms of CMS usage, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …

In fact, more sites are now being powered by the WordPress CMS platform.

*** UPDATE ***

As of June 2017, around 30% of all CMS websites in the world are built using WordPress.

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WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the numbers change so often.

For example, at the time this article was written, 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 most recently released version of WordPress. Less than half of all current users upgrade their WP installations to the latest release …

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

As this article was being written, the number of downloads had already grown. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will no doubt see a significantly higher number of downloads … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add improved or new features.

Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available over 100 new software updates in its first 11 years of existence …

(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available in its first 11 years)

WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months or so …

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

An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress updates are named in honor of famous Jazz music artists, eg:

• v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
• v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
• v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
• v.3.3 = Sonny Stitt (December 12, 2011),
• v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
• etc …

Who Is Using WordPress?

In a nutshell, all types of companies and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about everything and anything.

Well-known corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, educational institutions, government sectors, community organizations – even countries use WordPress to publish web content and run their official sites …

WordPress Showcase

Here are just some of the growing number of sites, organizations and people who use WordPress:

• Global Brands & Corporations: Bata, Public Storage Canada, GDF SUEZ, Groupe Vivendi, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
• Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Rush, Pixies, Brian Smith, Usain Bolt, Snoop Dogg, Katie Couric, Howie Mandel, Russell Brand, etc …
• Colleges & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Washington University’s School of Law, Carleton University, etc.
• Magazines & Media: Fortune, The New Yorker, InStyle News, CBS New York, etc.
• Government Sites, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Olympic Committee, 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 often choose the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their domain 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, WordPress blogs (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog posts per 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.com – Activity Around The World

In later posts, we will discuss the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.

Other WordPress Statistics

WordPress Plugins

WordPress users have access to over 37,000 WP plugins at no cost …

(WordPress.org free plugins directory)

For a detailed article about WordPress plugins see this post: WP Plugins – Improving Your Web Site’s Capabilities

WordPress Themes

WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 WordPress themes for free …

(WordPress.org free themes repository)

We have published a comprehensive article about WP themes here: Understanding WP Themes – A Beginner’s Guide

Translations Of WordPress

WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects in addition to English …

(WordPress.org languages)

WordPress Searches

The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around thirty-five million …

(WP-related searches online)

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

WordPress Services

According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of WordPress users who participated in 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 around US$50.

You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork.com …

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

(Source: Upwork.com)

As you can see from the information above, WordPress is poised for continued growth for a long time to come.

In other articles, we will cover the following areas of WordPress in great detail:

• Why WordPress is an ideal vehicle for growing your business online,
• Over 50 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,
• Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
• How to generate targeted traffic to your site, get more leads, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
• Plus, we’ll be regularly posting ongoing step-by-step tutorials and great examples on how you can use WordPress to grow your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on web development and website design costs.

Would You Like To Get Automatically Notified When New WordPress Tutorials Get Published? Then Subscribe To This Site!

Sources:

The above statistics 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://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/

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Disclaimer: We have no direct association with WordPress or any of the WordPress products written about on this website. We may receive a financial benefit or affiliate commission from sales of any third-party services or products advertised, mentioned or linked from this site. All images and details sourced from product websites remain the copyright of their respective owners and comply with all license terms and agreements of use to the best of our knowledge.

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