This blog post is part of a multi-part article series designed to help small business owners succeed online with the WordPress platform.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this article, you will learn some facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.
Statistics And Usage Of WordPress
Here is a summary of what you will learn in this article:
- WordPress began as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world 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 websites using a CMS application are powered by WordPress.
- Over 30,000,000 searches are made on Google each month 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 continually built by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress functionality every day.
- The WordPress software is regularly updated to eliminate bugs and improve its ease of use and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what someone can do using WordPress.
WordPress Market Dominance
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical users to add, modify and manage content on their site.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, WordPress has become the most popular self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of websites 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 its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo.com, Twitter, and eBay …
(WordPress [hosted] monthly uniques. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following figures on WordPress:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress usage statistics. 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 and more websites today are being built on the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the data changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was published, here is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above figures represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their WP installations to the latest version …
(WordPress versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this article was being written, the number of downloads is already increasing. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will no doubt see a significantly higher download figure … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available to users over 100 new updates since 2003 …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been released in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress upgrades are named after well-known Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.5 = Billy Strayhorn (February 17, 2005),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
A better question is who isn’t using WordPress? All kinds of businesses and people are using WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.
Leading corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, educational institutions, government department sites, not-for-profits – even nations are using WordPress sites …
WP Showcase
Here are just some of the sites, companies and people using WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, YRC Freight, GDF SUEZ, Group Bouygues, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, Nancy Pelosi, Beyoncé, Usain Bolt, The Rolling Stones, Dave Matthews Band, Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Brand, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, International Relations Online at American University, Bates College, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Tribune Media, New York Post, FiveThirtyEight, LinkedIn, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Chicago Weather Center, Slow Food Italia, CURE International, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer to download the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their domains and modified 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, blogs belonging to the WordPress network (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 lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress.com – Activity
In later tutorials, we explain the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 free plugins from the WordPress plugins repository …
(WordPress free plugins directory)
For more information about plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free WordPress themes …
(WP theme directory)
We have written a detailed article about WordPress themes here:
Using WordPress In Different Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages in addition to English …
(WordPress language translations)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Additional 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 thirty-five million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched online five times more than Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of users who participated in the survey stated that they make a full-time living off the WordPress CMS. An earlier survey conducted by WordPress (2012) also found that the median hourly rate of WordPress projects is around US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers 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 above information, the growth of WordPress is expected to continue for a long time to come.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the smartest option in most situations when it comes to choosing a platform to grow your small business online,
- Dozens of great 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 platform,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate more visitors to your website, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing many ”how to” tutorials and tips on how to use WordPress and grow your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on website development and website design costs.
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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://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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