I don’t know if you spend much time using Google’s insights for search tool… but I do… and I’ve noticed a trend that should be of interest to the entire WordPress community.
While TechCrunch may be reporting that WordPress.com is growing at a healthy rate… the same cannot necessarily be said for ‘WordPress’ as a whole.
In fact, things are heading downwards!
First up, check out this graph for the number of queries for ‘WordPress’ since 2004… pretty healthy huh!
WordPress search volume since 2004
However, this year, things have been looking far from rosy – and while there has been a slight increase since the start of the year.. the trend since June has first been a flattening, and then a significant (circa 10%?) decline.
Things not looking so great in 2009
Could this be simply a reflection of the overall maturity of the project, or a blip on an otherwise continuing upward trajectory, or are competitors gaining ground and interest in WP dropping off?
Whatever the reason – it’ll make for interesting trend watching in 2010 – and I’m sure I’m not just speaking for myself when I say it’d be nice to see WP continue on the up!
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December 3, 2009 
I really can’t find a reason for the number drop.. It seems like the WordPress community is more alive then ever.. My personal impression is that people are using WordPress more and more and I run into awesome new themes, plugins and BuddyPress/WPMU stuff on a daily basis.. So I’m not worried about WP at all :)
I think you’d need to look at WP.orgs traffic and take into account links in social sites such as twitter, facebook, linkedin.
As a project like WordPress grows people will no longer use Google just to find core resources. For example, I don’t search for twitter but use it every day. In fact, I don’t even access twitter.com, I use HootSuite or TweetDeck.
Based on the first graph it still shows queries are growing. I bet if you show the graph for 2008 it would look similar to 2009. The 10% dip could simply be seasonal.
Doesn’t look like it’s dying to me. Compare to the competition:
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=wordpress%2Cdrupal%2Cjoomla%2CTextpattern%2C&cmpt=q
Pingback: WordPress on the wane? – WordPress MU and BuddyPress plugins … by กิ๊กก๊อก : ตามหาฝันบนโลกออนไลน์ !!!
Oh, it’s kicking the competition into touch for sure… but can you really expect the level of growth its been enjoying so far to be sustained… there has to be a plateau at some point!
@Joe M the second graph is for 2009.
@James
I know the second graph is for 2009 but you need to compare 2008 vs. 2009 because their are seasonal dips when it comes to queries and traffic. There easily could of been the same dip in 2008 in October.
The first graph shows that queries are still growing very strong. The reason for the dip in October is probably that there are just less queries as a whole on the internet in that month.
@Joe M – I cut off the first graph before the drop to give the post a bit more ‘narrative’ ;)
One more thing. For example in October 2008 there were 70… queries and in october of 2009 nine their are 80. Still shows strong growth.
Ah, I see. Didn’t realize they were the exact same graph.
Just me using the images, ahem, creatively :)
This article is a little deceptive.
Why do people need to search for WordPress, when they can easily remember the URL and directly enter it? They don’t need Google to find WordPress, which could easily explain the “drop.”
So people have suddently just decided to stop searching for wordpress and entering it instead… how exactly do you explain that phenomenon?
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/wpmu.org/
And what’s to explain that?
Maybe we’re rubbish :D
Compete is hugely arbitrary, especially with a small site like this, google search trends are a measure of, well, google searches.
For a little while about a year ago, I think WP was starting to loose a little bit of relevance — hastened by the rise of Twitter and Facebook. But with the advent of BuddyPress and P2, I’m pretty confident you’ll see WordPress coming roaring back to the fore. Open source always wins out.