Continuing on its path to world domination, a new report by Codeguard reveals that WordPress now powers an incredible 79% of content driven websites worldwide. The second most popular CMS system, Joomla, holds only 7.2% of the total, followed by Drupal in third place with 5.3%.

Citing its ease of installation and great management and support facilities, the report reveals that web designers and developers are driving this trend rather than bloggers. This shift means that WordPress now leans towards being a real content management system in its own right, moving away from its roots as a blogging platform. Now, the number of static pages hosted on WordPress is larger than the number of posts.

The report also discloses the top ten plugins and themes favoured by WordPress users with Aveda, Twenty Twelve and Twenty Eleven topping the list:

Top Active Themes:

1. Aveda
2. Twenty Twelve
3. Twenty Eleven
4. Weaver II Pro
5. Dynamik-Gen
6. Kallyas
7. Divi
8. Elegance
9. Sahifa
10. Salient

Top Installed Plugins

1. Akismet
2. WordPress SEO (Yoast)
3. WordPress Importer
4. Wordfence Security
5. Gravity Forms
6. Google XML Sitemaps
7. WP Super Cache
8. Advanced Custom Fields
9. All in One SEO Pack

The State of the Web Report, as it is titled, is based on a 2015 study of over 250,000 SMB sites. It reveals that WordPress has been translated into 40 languages worldwide and the majority of top online news publishers are also relying on WordPress to power their heavily trafficked websites. 48% of Technorati’ Top 100 blogs are powered by WordPress, including The New York Times, CNN, Mashable and even eBay.

Clearly, users are waking up to the power of WordPress as a great option for their website, regardless of its topic or focus. To find out how opting for a WordPress website can help your business, get in touch with us today.