This article is part of an article series aimed at helping small business owners grow online.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, you will learn a number of surprising WordPress facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress to power their websites and blogs and what kind of people and businesses are using WordPress today.
WordPress: Usage And Popularity
In short:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted platform (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 website.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress. 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 websites worldwide that use a CMS application are powered by WordPress.
- Over 35 million searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is completely free to download, use and modify. WordPress is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress is continually worked on by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving WordPress every day.
- The WordPress application is regularly updated to fix bugs and improve its features and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what you can do using WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
A content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical users to add, edit and manage all content on their site.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, WordPress has grown to be 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 the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo.com, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest statistics on WordPress usage:
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 market share, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more and more websites are now using the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with statistics on WordPress is difficult because the data changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was written, here is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above 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 post was being written, the number of downloads is already increasing. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will see a much higher download number … perhaps even an updated version, as the WordPress developer team continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has made available to users over 100 new updates since 2003 …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress version updates are named in honor of famous Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
- v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
- v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
In a nutshell, all types of enterprises and people from all walks of life use WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Global corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, universities, government department sites, non-profit organizations – even countries use WordPress …
WordPress Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, organizations and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Bata, YRC Freight, Dassault Aviation, McDonald’s Singapore, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Rush, The Meredith Vieira Show, Brian Smith, The Sacramento Ballet, Snoop Dogg, Mötley Crüe, Gabriel Iglesias, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Bates College, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Thrive Magazine, Time.com, FiveThirtyEight, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Chicago Weather Center, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their own domain names 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 new posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress provides a live map showing user activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Users WorldWide
In later posts, we will present the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 free WordPress plugins from the WordPress plugins repository …
(WordPress.org free plugins repository)
We have published a great article about WordPress plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free themes …
(WordPress.org theme directory)
We have published a detailed article about WP themes here:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress language translations)
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-seven million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online five times as much as Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of WordPress 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 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.com)
As you can clearly see from the above facts and figures, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow and dominate in the CMS market.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best option when it comes to choosing a vehicle to grow your business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive look at the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive more visitors to your website, get more leads and subscribers, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be regularly posting many ”how to” tutorials and practical tips and examples on how to use WordPress to expand your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and website design.
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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://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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