Even though we post a wrap-up post each month, I don’t think the story of the growth of WordPress.com is very well-known. As Narendra Rocherolle said to me a few weeks ago, “Pound for pound you guys get less press per pageview.” Webware just publish some Nielson numbers that show WordPress.com as the #4 blog site in July, after Blogger, TMZ, and Typepad. Number four isn’t that hot,but the year over year growth was 398% which is 7-10x more than those above us. Of course Nielson/Netratings doesn’t match anyone’s internal numbers, though people generally assume they’re precise relative to each other.
But what about something more accurate? I’ve been a supporter of Quantcast since they launched and we run their code on all our blogs. It provides some interesting stats like demographics that we wouldn’t have on our own. (I also like that it’s fast and has never caused us problems, better than even Google Analytics.) Their numbers place us fairly well, #29 in the US with 16 million uniques. However there’s more…
Apparently the Quantcast numbers are just for blogs on a wordpress.com subdomain, none of our custom domain traffic is counted. They’re experimenting with a new feature called “networks” that aggregates the traffic for WordPress.com-hosted blog even with their own domains. Those numbers place us at 25 million US uniques and 70 million global a month, with a bit over 300 million monthly pageviews. We don’t track uniques, but their pageviews mirror our own closely so I feel this data is pretty accurate. 25 million US uniques would put us at #19 right next to Facebook.
The growth and reach isn’t a credit to us, it’s to our bloggers, but I am happy we’ve created a platform where some of the most creative bloggers can express themselves and attract a meaningful audience. Imagine what those numbers would look like if they included WordPress.org blogs.
This is a long way of saying happy 2nd birthday, WordPress.com. Thanks for the incredible ride over the last year.
I am really happy that things are working out great for the team, Matt. Congratulations. Go out, grab a drink 😉
Thanks a lot for your service. Your platform WordPress.com is really great. I am able to express myself. I can say my political opinion.
Congratulations to the growth of WordPress.com.
Matt, a very big thanks to you and the WordPress team – both with WordPress.org and WordPress.com …
You’ve done great things. I’ve been a fan ever since I found out about WordPress and have not been disappointed. It just keeps getting better. In fact, the pace of improvement is sometimes so strong that it’s a little hard to keep up with it sometimes. But as they say, it’s all good.
I will never forget the massive time Podz/Mark put in with me when I was first figuring things out. There were many others as well who were helpful … so, wishing you guys the best.
Congratulations! and thanks for the work all of you had put on wordpress.
This new is very good. Good job Wp.
Yes, Happy Birthday to WordPress! This blogging platform has made life a lot easier and much more enjoyable for an avid blogger such as myself. I am sure my sentiment is shared by millions of bloggers the world over.
Hey Matt,
Glad to see that things are working out for you guys so well! I hope to return to being more involved with WordPress in the future.
As with any birthday, the question becomes … what’s up next for wordpress.com?
Matt,
Honestly, I never realized that WordPress was only two years old. I has the “feel” of a much more mature product. In the past I used some of the other products out there, and far and away, WordPress is easier to use, seems to have a much more robust user community, and is one tool you never have to fight with to get the job done. And I only use a small fraction of the available fuctionality! I could not imagine life now without it!