Is WordPress Actually the Most Popular Website Platform in the World?
By Scott Riley
Updated 08.30.2022
When I first started building websites in 2011, I wrote all of the code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP) and created the database tables the same way (SQL). I used Photoshop and Illustrator to create the graphics, designs, images and page layouts. Then I put it all together by hand.
I accomplished this using my newly acquired knowledge and skills from college coursework, with the belief that it was the only authentic way to build websites.
I had also completed a course in Content Management Systems (CMS) that focused primarily on WordPress. It was originally designed just for blogs, but it has evolved to be the number 1 platform for all types of websites.
During the class, we built a small WordPress website, but I considered it to be for amateurs without much, if any coding knowledge. I didn’t think that many developers would use it, or that very many “real” websites would be built with it.
Well, I’m here today to tell you that I was very wrong!
As of this year (2022), WordPress runs 42.9% of the entire internet. That’s astonishing! Just think about the numbers. Okay, okay, I’ll give them to you. That’s around 450,000,000 websites.
The growth of WordPress use over the years is phenomenal. Here are the stats of its global market share from 2017 to 2021:
2017: 27%; 2018: 28%; 2019: 32%; 2020: 35%; and 2021: 39%
Of all CMS systems in use anywhere and everywhere, WordPress owns 62.5% of the market, meaning that it’s the most popular CMS of them all for the 7th year in a row.
Many well-known Fortune 500 and internet companies use WordPress, including the New York Observer, New York Post, TED, Thought Catalog, Williams, USA Today, CNN, Fortune.com, TIME.com, National Post, Spotify, TechCrunch, CBS Local, and NBC.
WordPress is the fastest growing CMS, with roughly 500+ new sites being built daily in the top 10 million websites on the web (compared to Shopify’s and Squarespace’s 60-80).
27 posts are published around the world on WordPress sites every second.
37 million global Google searches for “WordPress” are made every month.
WordPress has been translated to 205 languages.
The keyword “WordPress” gets googled around 2.7 million times every month.
Just one more: WordPress.com gets more unique visitors than Amazon (126 million per month vs. 96 million per month).
* All stats courtesy of https://www.codeinwp.com/blog/wordpress-statistics/
Anyway, I think you probably get the point – WordPress is awesome!
Still, as awesome as it is, it can get lonely and disagreeable if it doesn’t get attention. It needs love and care, just like every other website in the world.
So, if you are 1 of the almost every 3 businesses that use WordPress, don’t make the mistake of thinking that you can just install a bunch of maintenance plugins and then forget about it. All of those plugins will have continual updates that need to be managed.
In fact, you can count on regular updates to plugins, widgets, add-ons or your theme about every week. You need to be careful though, because installing too many of those helpful, little tools, or downloading outdated or conflicting versions can cause insidious performance problems. A few of the more common include, very slow page loading times, missing content, broken links, layouts and features, and various rendering issues with your images and videos.
Caring for Your Website
Our website maintenance and improvement guide, Caring for Your Website was written with WordPress in mind. It contains targeted tips and useful resources, including a number of efficient and effective plugins that have been time tested and frequently recommended.
If you have been experiencing issues with your WordPress website, want better performance, or you just want to learn how to properly maintain it, click the button below to download your free copy. Your website will thank you!