This blog post is part of a detailed article series aimed at helping you understand why the WordPress CMS platform can help your small business achieve its online goals.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this article, you will learn a number of facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress to power their websites and what kind of businesses and people are using WordPress today.
WordPress: Facts And Figures
In short:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (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 60 million installations of WordPress. This number grows every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide 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 content management system are powered by WordPress.
- Over 30,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built and improved upon by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress software on an ongoing basis.
- WordPress is continually being updated to eliminate bugs and improve its features and security.
- WordPress can deliver your 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 type of site you can build using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Usage
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a web 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. Since then, WordPress has grown to become the most downloaded self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform 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 are home-based. Despite being a distributed company with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Yahoo.com, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted version] unique visitors. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following WP CMS usage figures:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress CMS usage figures. 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 sites are now using the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is very 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 number represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites to the latest release …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post 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 will no doubt see a much higher download number … perhaps even a different 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 over 100 new software updates to date …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress version releases are traditionally named in honor of Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.0 = Miles Davis (January 3, 2004),
- v.2.2 = Stan Getz (May 16, 2007),
- v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
A better question is who doesn’t use WordPress nowadays? All types of enterprises and people are using WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.
Large corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous musicians, universities, government department sites, humanitarian organizations – even nations are using WordPress to run their official websites and blogs …
WordPress.org Web Site Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, companies and people using WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, Glad, GDF SUEZ, Groupe Vivendi, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Kylie Minogue, Brian Smith, Usain Bolt, Riverdance, William Shatner, Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Brand, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Bates College, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Thrive Magazine, New York Post, FiveThirtyEight, LinkedIn, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Olympic Committee, São Paulo Carnival, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer to download 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, WordPress blogs (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new 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.com – Live Activity
In other posts, we cover the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 plugins at no cost …
(WordPress free plugins directory)
For a detailed article about plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 WordPress themes for free from the WordPress theme directory …
(WordPress.org theme directory)
For a detailed article about WP themes go here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org language translations)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around 30 million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched 5 x as much as Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of WP users who participated in the survey stated 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 around US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow and dominate in the CMS market.
In other articles, we will explore the following areas of WordPress in detail:
- Why WordPress is the best vehicle for growing your business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed look at the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive more traffic to your website, get more leads and subscribers, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing ongoing ”how to” tutorials and tips of how to use WordPress and grow your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and website design.
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Information Sources:
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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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum