This blog post is part of a series of articles aimed at helping you succeed online using the WordPress content publishing platform.
For more information about of the article series, go here:
In this article, we present some statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their websites and blogs and what kind of people and businesses are using WordPress today.
Facts And Figures About WordPress Usage
A brief summary:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress is available as a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress site.
- There are well over 60 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 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 websites worldwide that use a CMS application are built with WordPress.
- Over 35 million searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving WordPress on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress software is regularly updated to fix bugs and improve both its usage 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 you can build using WordPress.
WordPress Market Dominance
A content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easier for non-technical users to add, edit and manage all content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the most downloaded self-hosted blogging tool 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 work from home. Despite being a distributed company with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique visitors than Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Yahoo.com, and eBay …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following WordPress CMS usage stats:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP CMS 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 sites are being built on the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is difficult because the information changes so often.
For example, at the time this post was written, here is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above numbers represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their installations to the latest version …
(WP 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 should expect to see a significantly higher figure … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress development community 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 one hundred new software updates to date …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress updates have a tradition of being named in honor of Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
- v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
- v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
In a nutshell, all different types of organizations and people use WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.
Leading brands, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, colleges, government department sites, non-profit organizations – even nations use WordPress blogs …
WordPress.org Blog Showcase
Here are just some of the sites, organizations and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, DC Diaper Bank, Method Products, Groupe Vivendi, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Ariana Grande, Pixies, Justin Bieber, Dallas Mavericks, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, Dave Matthews Band, Channing Tatum, Russell Brand, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Washington University’s School of Law, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Fortune, Time.com, FiveThirtyEight, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Community Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Chicago Weather Center, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer 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 set up for commercial 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 posts per second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
You can see a live map that shows user activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity
In later articles, we will discuss the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 plugins for free from the WordPress plugin directory …
(WordPress free plugins directory)
For a detailed article about WP plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 WordPress themes for free from the WordPress free themes repository …
(WordPress free themes repository)
We have published a detailed article about WP themes here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages in addition to English …
(WP language translations)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than thirty million …
(WordPress-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 than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of WordPress users who responded to 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 developers and designers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see from the facts and figures presented above, the growth of WordPress is expected to continue for a long time to come.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is an ideal platform to grow your business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive breakdown of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted traffic, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide lots of tutorials and great examples of how you can use WordPress and grow your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on website development and web design costs.
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Sources:
The information for this article 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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