When the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell the difference.
Then WordPress came along and revolutionized online publishing and content management. Now, it’s becoming harder to tell if a website is running on “blogging” tools like the WordPress publishing platform, or if it’s been developed using a website development software application. Not so much in terms of what the sites are being used for, but in terms of website design and also being able to tell what’s “under the hood”.
(Can You Tell Which Application Your Website Is Powered By?)
For website owners, understanding the difference between a CMS application like WordPress and other website-building software is huge, not so much in terms of the technical differences, but more importantly, regarding the areas that matter to most website owners, like web development costs, ease of use, ability to maintain the website up-to-date, managing web content, etc.
Think about this …
Which of the following options would you choose?
A) An eye-catching, professional-looking website that is expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking website, but at a fraction of the cost of getting site ”A” built.
If you selected option “B”, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can give you an expensive-looking website that will normally cost far less to build than websites which are built with other web development tools … and how to tell these apart!
WordPress is the world’s most used online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a flexible and powerful CMS platform that is ideally suited for most business needs.
Whether your reason for having a website or blog is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a newbie with no programming skills to use and manage, yet it offers a range of helpful tools that make your web presence more effective in terms of getting your content published, promoting visitor engagement, generating business leads and sales, enhancing your site’s capabilities, etc.
With almost one in every five websites around the world currently being powered by WordPress, chances are that if you already own a website, yours is also a WordPress site.
And if you don’t have a website yet, or are thinking of getting a website built, then wouldn’t it be great to be able to show your web developer an existing site with the design and layout that you like, know that it was built with WordPress and that you can, therefore, get a similar site built to a smaller budget if required?
Tell-Tale Signs It’s A WordPress Site And WordPress-Checking Tools
Do you need to know if a website is powered by WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to this page because you’ve heard about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on WordPress, or some other content management system.
Also, have you ever looked at a competitor’s website and wondered what they’re doing to try and get better results online?
Knowing if your competitor’s site is built with WordPress can tell you a few things about their strategies and methods, such as what themes or plugins they are using.
Here are a number of methods you can use to quickly tell if a website has been built using WordPress:
Look At Your Page Source Code
If you know how to bring up the source code of a web page (e.g. Firefox Menu > Web Developer > Page Source if using Firefox, or Google Menu > More Tools > View Source if using Google Chrome), you can look for obvious tell-tale footprints that the site was built with WordPress …
(View the web page source code using Firefox)
Let’s say that you are browsing online and you visit a web site that you like, and you wonder if the site uses WordPress …
First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.
Once the source code of the site loads on your screen, you can search for “wp-content” either manually …
Or use your browser’s “Find” function …
(Using Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site was built with WordPress or not.
Note: If you are unable to locate the words “wp-content” within the source code, it does not mean that the website is not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if a site was built using WordPress, as we will soon discuss.
As the focus of this post is to help non-technical users, however, we have listed below a number of easy methods you can use to check if your website is built using WordPress other than searching the source code.
Simply Ask Your Web Developer
While this may seem like the obvious thing to do, a number of website developers, for whatever reason, may build clients a website and not tell them it’s WordPress.
If you used a website developer or got somebody else to build you a website, just ask your developer or whoever built your website if your website runs on WordPress.
That was simple, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t get in touch with your webmaster, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while surfing the net late at night and need to know if the site was built using WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WP theme where the web them template has not been edited, you can often see a “Proudly powered by WordPress” message shown at the bottom of the site …
(Powered by WordPress – footer section)
If these simple methods haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of telling whether a website was built with WordPress or not …
Sites That Tell You If A Website Was Built Using WordPress
Here are a couple of online applications that can tell you if a particular website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WordPress?
(Is It WP – WP Checking Tool)
Is It WordPress? is a free online tool that tells you if a website runs on WordPress or not.
Using this site is really quite simple. Just paste the address of the website into the search field and click the button.
The tool will then go and search through the URL files and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, it will even tell you the version of WordPress the site is currently using …
If the web site has not been built with WordPress, you will see a message similar to the one shown in the screen shot below …
To visit this site, go here:
Advanced WP Theme Checker by Satori
(WordPress Theme Detector)
WordPress Theme Detector by Satori Studio is a free tool that can help determine whether or not a website uses WordPress as its CMS engine; it will also tell you which theme the site is using and provide a link to the theme’s official page.
To use this tool, paste the URL of a web page (it doesn’t have to be the home page) into the ‘Enter website URL’ field and click on the ‘What WordPress theme is that?’ button …
(Enter website URL and click the button)
The Detector will automatically scan the website and output its theme information …
(WordPress Theme Detector displays theme results)
If a website is built with WordPress but the theme is too customized to contain any traces of its origins, the Detector will still let you know it’s a WP site by outputting a message on the right.
(Modified WordPress theme message)
If the website is not using WordPress at all, the tool will also let you know …
(This website is not WordPress)
You can try the Detector yourself by visiting this link:
Wappalyzer
(Wappalyzer – Add-On For Firefox & Chrome Browser)
If you use a web browser such as Firefox or Chrome and would like to be able to see if the sites that you are visiting are WordPress-powered, then Wappalyzer is a very useful add-on to install on your web browser.
Wappalyzer helps you identify what type of software is installed on the sites you are visiting.
According to their website …
“Wappalyzer is a browser extension that uncovers the technologies used on websites. It detects content management systems, eCommerce platforms, web servers, JavaScript frameworks, analytics tools and many more.”
Wappalyzer is also an easy add-on to install.
After installing Wappalyzer on your browser, icons will appear in your browser menu allowing you to see which technologies are installed on the sites you visit …
If you see the WordPress icon displayed on your browser menu (as the above screenshot shows), then the site uses WordPress.
(This site has been built with WordPress!)
Go here to learn more:
SpyBar
(SpyBar – Browser Addon For WordPress)
SpyBar is a browser addon that lets you ‘reverse engineer’ any WordPress site you visit and see which WordPress plugins and themes are being used, right inside your web browser …
(SpyBar – Discover WordPress Plugins And Themes Used By Your Competitors)
SpyBar can be installed as a browser extension on Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox and is compatible with PC and Mac.
To download or learn more about SpyBar, visit the site below:
Plugin Sniper
(Plugin Sniper – Find out what plugins a WordPress site is using)
Plugin Sniper lets you find out what plugins a WordPress site is using. This is a useful tool if you want to know what WordPress plugins are being used by your competitors.
Plugin Sniper is also a useful tool for researching what kinds of plugins businesses in certain niches are using …
(Search WordPress sites by categories and location)
To download or learn more about Plugin Sniper, visit the site below:
We hope you have found this tutorial useful.
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