This blog post is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping business owners and non-technical users succeed online using the WordPress CMS platform.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, we present some surprising WordPress usage facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their websites and what kind of people and businesses use WordPress today.
Statistics And Usage About WordPress
In short:
- WordPress started in 2003.
- WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted platform (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 website or blog.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number grows 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 using a content management system are powered by WordPress.
- Over 30 million searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress 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. People from all around the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress application on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress application is regularly updated to address bugs and improve both its usage and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what someone can do using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Market Share
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical website owners to add, edit and manage content on their site.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the largest self-hosted CMS application in the world, used on millions of sites 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 are home-based. Despite being a distributed company with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com unique views. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest WordPress usage statistics:
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 websites today are being powered by WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the information changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was written, this is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download figure represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their sites to the latest version …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
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, expect to see a much higher number of downloads … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress developer community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has released over one hundred new software versions in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been released in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress releases have a tradition of being named in honor of Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
In a nutshell, all kinds of companies and people from all walks of life use WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.
Popular brands, businesses, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, colleges, government department sites, humanitarian organizations – even countries are using WordPress blogs …
WordPress.org Website Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, companies and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Bata, DC Diaper Bank, Groupe Renault, Group Bouygues, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Kylie Minogue, Brian Smith, Dallas Mavericks, The Rolling Stones, Blondie, Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Brand, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Bates College, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Time Inc., New York Post, InStyle News, LinkedIn, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Chicago Weather Center, Maryland National Road Association, CURE International, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses clearly prefer 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 belonging to the WordPress network (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new posts per second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress provides a live map that shows the latest user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity Around The World
In other articles, we will present 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 for free from the WordPress plugins directory …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
We have published a great article about WordPress plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 themes for free …
(WP free themes repository)
We have published a great article about WP themes here:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WP languages)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than 30 million …
(WordPress-related 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 Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of 33,000 WordPress users who answered 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 average hourly rate of WordPress projects is around US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow and dominate in the CMS landscape.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is an ideal vehicle to grow your small business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive look at the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate more traffic, increase conversions, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide loads of ”how to” tutorials and tips of how to use WordPress to grow your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and web design.
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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://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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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group