WordPress – Useful Facts And Statistics

This blog post is part of a detailed series of articles designed to help small business owners succeed online using WordPress.

For an overview of the article series, go here: Using WordPress To Grow A Successful Small Business Online

In this blog post, you will learn some impressive statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress to power their business websites and blogs and what kind of people and businesses use WordPress today.

Some Useful Facts And Figures About WordPress

The brief version:

• WordPress began in 2003.
• WordPress is available as a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
• 22 out of every 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website.
• There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number grows significantly every day.
• WordPress powers almost 27% of the internet. Over one-fifth 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 that use a content management system are driven by WordPress.
• Over 30,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
• The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
• WordPress code is continually built and improved upon by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress functionality each day.
• The WordPress software is regularly updated to fix bugs and improve both its features and security.
• WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages.
• The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
• There is almost no limit to what type of site you can build using WordPress.

WordPress Market Dominance

In simple terms, 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 website.

WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress is now the widely-used self-hosted blogging tool 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 are home-based. Despite its distributed model and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, and eBay …

(WordPress.com unique visits. Source: http://automattic.com/about)

Here are just some of the latest statistics on WordPress:

Over 60% of websites around the world are not CMS-based. Of those that are, WordPress is the clear leader, with over 60% of the market share.

WordPress CMS usage statistics

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

In fact, more and more websites and blogs are using the WordPress CMS platform.

*** UPDATE ***

As of June 2017, around 30% of all CMS websites in the world are built using WordPress.

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WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the information changes so frequently.

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

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

Note: The above numbers represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Less than half of all current users upgrade their installations to the latest release …

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

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

Speaking of updates, WordPress has released over one hundred new software updates since 2003 …

(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been released to date)

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

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

Curiously enough, all major WordPress upgrades have a tradition of being named in honor of well-known Jazz music artists, eg:

• v.1.0 = Miles Davis (January 3, 2004),
• v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
• v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
• v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
• v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
• etc …

Who Is Using WordPress

Who doesn’t use WordPress? All different kinds of enterprises and people are using WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.

Popular corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous actors, colleges, government department sites, not-for-profits – even countries are using WordPress-powered sites …

WP Showcase

Here are just some of the growing number of businesses, organizations and people who are using WordPress:

• Global Brands & Corporations: Bata, Glad, Method Products, Groupe Vivendi, Vogue, etc …
• Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Rush, Lily Allen, Beyoncé, Usain Bolt, The Rolling Stones, Katie Couric, Channing Tatum, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
• Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Bates College, Carleton University, etc.
• Magazines & Online Media: Time Inc., New York Post, IMC TV, LinkedIn, etc.
• Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Olympic Committee, Maryland National Road Association, CURE International, 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 names and customized 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 blog 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 discuss the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.

Other WordPress Statistics

WordPress Plugins

WordPress users have access to over 37,000 plugins for free from the WordPress plugins directory …

(WordPress free plugins directory)

For more information about plugins see this post: WP Plugins Enhance Your Site’s Features And Functionality

WordPress Themes

WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 WordPress themes at no cost …

(WordPress.org theme repository)

For more information about WP themes see this post: About WP Themes – A Handy Guide For Newbies

WordPress In Different Languages

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

(WordPress.org language translations)

Searching Online For WordPress

The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around thirty-seven million …

(WordPress searches online)

If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched five times as much as Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.

WordPress Developers

According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of all WordPress 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 US$50.

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

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

(Source: Upwork.com)

As you can see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow.

In other articles, you will learn:

• Why WordPress is an ideal vehicle to grow your business online,
• Dozens of great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive look at the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
• Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
• How to drive more traffic to your site, get more leads and subscribers, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
• Plus, we’ll provide ongoing step-by-step tutorials and tips of how to use WordPress to grow your business online, and save thousands of dollars on website development and web design costs.

Get Notified When New WordPress Tutorials Are Published – Subscribe Using The Form Below!

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://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/

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Disclaimer: We have no association with WordPress or any of the WordPress products promoted on this website. We may derive an affiliate commission from the sale of products and services advertised, endorsed or linked to our site. All images and information sourced from product websites remain the copyright of their respective owners and are used only for training or illustrative purposes.

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