This blog post is part of a multi-part series of articles aimed at helping you succeed online with WordPress.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this article, you will learn a number of surprising WordPress facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress and what kind of businesses and people are using WordPress today.
WordPress: Useful Facts And Statistics
Here is a summary of what this post will cover:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress. This number increases every day.
- 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 sites that use a content management system are powered by WordPress.
- Over 30 million searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress is continually built by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress application is continually being updated to fix bugs and improve both its features and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what can be built using WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
A content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical users to add, modify and manage content on their site.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, WordPress has become the widely-used self-hosted content management system (CMS) 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 work from home. 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, Yahoo.com, Twitter, and eBay …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest stats on WordPress usage:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress usage statistics. Source: trends.builtwith.com/cms)
In terms of CMS usage, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more and more sites are being built on WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the data changes so often.
For example, at the time this article was published, this is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above figure represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their installations to the latest version …
(WordPress versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this post 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 no doubt see a significantly higher download number … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress development community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has released over 100 new updates in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been released to date)
WordPress currently releases a new update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress updates are typically named in honor of famous Jazz music artists, 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.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
Who isn’t using WordPress? All different kinds of organizations and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about everything under the sun.
Leading corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, universities, government department sites, community organizations – even countries use WordPress blogs …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, institutions and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Google Ventures, DC Diaper Bank, Groupe Renault, Group Bouygues, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Rush, Nancy Pelosi, Brian Smith, Usain Bolt, The Rolling Stones, Kobe Bryant, Howie Mandel, Russell Brand, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, International Relations Online at American University, UCF College of Medicine, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Thrive Magazine, The New Yorker, Facebook Newsroom, LinkedIn, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Community Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Chicago Weather Center, Maryland National Road Association, CURE International, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer to download the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their own domain and customized 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 self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new blog posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress publishes a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity
In later tutorials, we will compare the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 free plugins …
(WP free plugins directory)
For more information about WordPress plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free WP themes from the WordPress themes directory …
(WordPress.org themes directory)
For a detailed article about themes see this post:
Using WordPress In Different Languages
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 thirty-five million …
(WP-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched 5 x as much as Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of all WordPress 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 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 from the information presented above, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow and dominate in the CMS market.
In other blog posts, we will cover the following:
- Why WordPress is an ideal platform to grow your business online,
- Over fifty reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed breakdown of the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted traffic to your website, get more leads and subscribers, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing many step-by-step tutorials and practical tips on how to use WordPress and expand your business online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and website design.
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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://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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