Here’s why 72 million websites use WordPress

“Considering that the number of total active websites is estimated at over 172 million according to a survey published by netcraft, that means that around 75,000,000 websites are using WordPress right now — with around half of those sites (37,500,000) being hosted on the WordPress.com shared hosting installation.” [Source: Brenda Barron, 29 Oct 2019]

WordPress is used to build millions of websites for everything from small personal blogs to larger sites for companies like Bloomberg, Harvard, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, Reuters, Sony, the government of Sweden, Vogue, and the Wall Street Journal Law Blog. [Source: ISITWP.com, 20 Aug 2019]

As a web designer and consultant, I’ve used a variety of web design systems including Drupal, Flywheel, Squarespace, WordPress, Weebly, Wix, and various ‘site builder’ applications offered by top tier hosting companies. For clients who need help with existing websites, I need to adapt to their existing platform and hosting company. I’ve found benefits and drawbacks to the various systems I’ve used. The best website design and hosting depends on the website functions and goals.

Something I like about WordPress is that it tends to be scaleable. Basic websites can be setup fairly easily, and with a small investment of time the website owner can be trained to manage and edit the site. Hosting from WordPress.com can be as inexpensive as $60 per year. So, it’s a great solution for many people. For those wanting more powerful, flexible, visual design capabilities, there are many themes to make WordPress even better, such as Divi from Elegant Themes.

I saw an ad recently on YouTube for Duda (see below), a website design and hosting platform. The ad incorrectly claims that WordPress is a horrible system for designing websites and that it’s frustrating to work with. The ad intends to make a humorous jab at WordPress and the frustrated developers who use it, but the ad is counterproductive because those with any familiarity using WordPress will see that it’s a misrepresentation and be less likely to trust Duda.

Rather than offending WordPress users, Duda advertising would be more effective if it acknowledged the benefits of WordPress and then explained how Duda might be better.

By Greg Johnson

Greg Johnson is a freelance writer in Iowa City and also the founder and Director of the ResourcesForLife.com website. He also manages IowaCityWebDesignArtist.com and many other topic specific websites. Learn more at AboutGregJohnson.com

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