This blog post is part of a multi-part article series aimed at helping you understand why the WordPress content publishing platform can help your business grow and succeed online using WordPress.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, you will learn some surprising statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress Usage Statistics
A brief summary:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress is available as a hosted application (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 installing a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number increases everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world 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 worldwide using a CMS application are driven by WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is built by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress on an ongoing basis.
- WordPress is updated on a regular basis to address bugs and improve both its ease of use 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 someone can do with WordPress.
WordPress Market Dominance
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, modify and manage all content on their website.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the largest self-hosted content management system (CMS) 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 and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo.com, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following figures on WordPress usage:
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 dominance, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more websites and blogs are using the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the numbers change so often.
For example, at the time this article was written, this 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 recent 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 article was being written, the number of downloads has already increased. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will see a significantly higher download number … perhaps even an updated version, as the WordPress development team continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has made available over one hundred new updates to date …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been released to date)
WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress version releases are typically named after Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.0 = Miles Davis (January 3, 2004),
- v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
- v.3.0 = Thelonious Monk (June 17, 2010),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress?
In a nutshell, all kinds of enterprises and people use WordPress to blog about everything under the sun.
Giant corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, colleges, government sectors, local organizations – even countries use WordPress-powered sites …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the sites, institutions and people using WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Bata, DC Diaper Bank, Method Products, Groupe Vivendi, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Lily Allen, Justin Bieber, Usain Bolt, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, Kobe Bryant, Howie Mandel, Russell Brand, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Bates College, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Tribune Media, The New Yorker, IMC TV, LinkedIn, etc.
- Governments, Public Services & Community Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Canadian Olympic Committee, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, CURE International, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available in 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 and freely 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 per day).
You can see a live map showing user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Activity
In other tutorials, we explain the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 WordPress plugins at no cost from the WordPress free plugins repository …
(WordPress.org plugin directory)
For a detailed article about WP plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free WordPress themes …
(WordPress.org themes repository)
For a detailed article about WordPress themes see this post:
WordPress Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than 35 million …
(WordPress 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, a quarter of 33,000 WordPress users who responded to the survey said 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 at freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical WordPress job cost ranges are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see from the above facts and figures, the growth of WordPress is expected to continue for many years to come.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best platform for growing 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 the WordPress platform,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted traffic, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing loads of ”how to” tutorials and great examples on how you can use WordPress and expand your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and web design.
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Information Sources:
The above statistics 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://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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