This blog post is part of an article series designed to help small businesses grow online using WordPress.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this article, you will learn some surprising WordPress facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress and what kind of businesses are using WordPress today.
WordPress Usage Statistics
In short:
- WordPress began as a blogging tool 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 installing a new WordPress site.
- There are over sixty 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 powered 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 that use a CMS application are driven by WordPress.
- Over 30 million searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually built and improved upon by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving WordPress functionality on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress application is regularly updated to address bugs and improve its usage and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 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 with WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Dominance
A content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy 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. Since then, WordPress has grown to become the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of websites 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 being a distributed company and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique visitors than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest WP usage stats:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP usage stats. 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 websites and blogs today are being powered by WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the data 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 download number 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 increased. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will see a much higher download figure … perhaps even a newer version, as WordPress continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has made available over one hundred new software versions since 2003 …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress version updates are named in honor of famous Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.0 = Miles Davis (January 3, 2004),
- v.2.2 = Stan Getz (May 16, 2007),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
In a nutshell, all types of organizations and people are using WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.
Well-known corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous actors, universities, government sectors, not-for-profits – even countries use WordPress-powered sites …
WP Website Showcase
Here are just some of the sites, organizations and people who are using WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Coca-Cola France, Boardshorts.com, Method Products, Groupe Vivendi, Vogue, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Lily Allen, Beyoncé, The Sacramento Ballet, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, Blondie, Howie Mandel, Russell Brand, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, UCF College of Medicine, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Thrive Magazine, Time.com, IMC TV, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Canadian Olympic Committee, Slow Food Italia, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their own domain and 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 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.com – Activity Worldwide
In later articles, we present the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 free plugins …
(WordPress.org plugin directory)
For a detailed article about WordPress plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free themes from the WordPress theme repository …
(WP themes repository)
We have written a great article about themes here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages in addition to English …
(WordPress languages)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than 30 million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched 5 x more than Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of all users who participated in the survey said that they make a full-time living off the WordPress CMS. 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 designers and developers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork.com, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see from the above information, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to dominate the CMS landscape.
In other articles, we will explore the following areas of WordPress in detail:
- Why WordPress is an ideal vehicle for growing your business online,
- Over fifty reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive review of the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted traffic, get more leads and subscribers, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing lots of tutorials and examples of how to use WordPress to grow your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on website development and website design costs.
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References:
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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"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)