WordPress – Useful Facts And Statistics

This article is part of a detailed article series aimed at helping you understand how the WordPress platform can help your small business grow online using the WordPress CMS.

For more information about of the article series, go here:

• Everything You Need To Know To Grow Your Small Business Using WordPress

In this article, you will learn a number of statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.

Some Useful Facts And Figures About WordPress Usage

The short version:

• WordPress started in 2003.
• WordPress offers users the choice of 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 site.
• There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows significantly every day.
• 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 sites that use a CMS application are driven by WordPress.
• Over 35 million searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
• WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed under an open source content management system.
• WordPress is built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress software on an ongoing basis.
• WordPress is updated on a regular basis to fix bugs and improve its features and security.
• WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international 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 web tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easy for non-technical website owners to add, modify 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. Since then, WordPress has grown to become the most popular self-hosted CMS application in the world, used on millions of sites 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 being a distributed company with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo.com, Twitter, and eBay …

(WordPress [hosted] unique monthly visits. Source: http://automattic.com/about)

Consider the following figures on WordPress usage:

WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …

(WP usage figures. Source: trends.builtwith.com/cms)

In terms of CMS dominance, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …

(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)

In fact, more sites are being built with the WordPress CMS application.

WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the data changes so frequently.

For example, at the time this article was written, here is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …

(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)

Note: The above download numbers represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their sites to the latest release …

(WordPress versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)

As this article was being written, the number of downloads has already grown. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you should expect to see a much higher number of downloads … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.

Regarding updates, WordPress has released over one hundred new software versions to date …

(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been made available in its first 11 years)

WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months …

(WordPress regularly releases new version updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)

An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress version releases have a tradition of being named after well-known Jazz music artists, eg:

• v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
• v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
• v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
• v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
• v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
• etc …

Who Uses WordPress

A better question is who doesn’t use WordPress nowadays? All types of enterprises and people are using WordPress to blog about everything under the sun.

Well-known brands, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, colleges, government department sites, non-profit organizations – even countries use WordPress …

WordPress Web Site Showcase

Here are just some of the sites, companies and people who are using WordPress:

• Global Brands & Corporations: Factory Jackson, Public Storage Canada, Panic, Groupe Vivendi, Vogue, etc …
• Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Nancy Pelosi, Beyoncé, Dallas Mavericks, Riverdance, Kobe Bryant, Howie Mandel, Russell Brand, etc …
• Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Washington University’s School of Law, MIT Sloan Management Review, etc.
• Magazines & Online Media: Tribune Media, Time.com, IMC TV, Enterprise Magazine, etc.
• Governments, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Canadian Museum of History, Maryland National Road Association, CURE International, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.

Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).

• Businesses clearly 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 activities.
• More than half of all WordPress users use the hosted version on WordPress.com
• In 2014, blogs that are part of the WordPress network (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).

You can see a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …

WordPress.com – Activity

In other posts, we discuss the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.

Additional Statistics About WordPress

WordPress Plugins

WordPress users have access to over 37,000 WP plugins at no cost from the WordPress free plugin directory …

(WP plugin repository)

For a detailed article about plugins go here:

• Add New Features And Functionality To Your Blog With Plugins

WordPress Themes

WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 free themes from the WordPress themes directory …

(WordPress.org free themes repository)

We have published a great article about WordPress themes here:

• A Basic Guide To WordPress Themes

WordPress Language Translations

WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects in addition to English …

(WordPress.org language translations)

WordPress Searches

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 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 is searched online five times as much as Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.

WordPress Rates

According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of all 33,000 WP 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 median hourly rate of WordPress projects is US$50.

You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork.com …

According to Upwork.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is between $10 – $500 …

(Source: Upwork.com)

As you can see from the statistics above, the growth of WordPress is expected to continue for a long time to come.

In other blog posts, you will learn:

• Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a platform to grow your small business online,
• Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive look at the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
• How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
• How to drive more visitors to your site, increase conversions, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
• Plus, we’ll be regularly posting many step-by-step tutorials and actual tips and examples of how to use WordPress and expand your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on website development and web design costs.

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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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