When the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. One could easily tell the two apart.
Then the WordPress CMS came along and everything changed. Now, it’s getting more difficult to tell if a site was built with a “blogging” CMS application like the WordPress publishing platform, or if it’s been built using a web building software tooltool. 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 surface.
(Can You Tell Which Application Is Powering Your Website?)
For many website owners, understanding the difference between a Content Management System tool like WordPress and other website-building software is huge, not so much in terms of the technical differences, but more importantly, in terms of the things that the majority of website owners care about, such as web development costs, ease of use, ability to maintain the website up-to-date, managing web content, etc.
Think about this …
Which of these options would you choose?
A) An eye-catching, professional-looking website that is expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking site, but for a fraction of the cost of getting option “A” above.
If you went with website “B”, then you need to learn more about the benefits of using WordPress, why WordPress can provide you with an eye-catching website that could end up costing you far less to build than websites which use a website development application … and how to tell these two types apart!
WordPress is the world’s leading online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a powerful content management application that is ideally suited for all businesses and non-technical users.
Whether your reason for having an online presence is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a novice with no technical knowledge to use, and offers an array of helpful functions that make your web site more effective in terms of getting your content published, promoting visitor interaction, generating business leads and sales, enhancing your site’s capabilities, scalability, 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 considering getting a website built, then wouldn’t it be great 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 something similarly built for your business quite inexpensively?
Is It A WP Blog?
Do you need to know if your website uses WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to this page because you’ve heard wonderful things about all of the great benefits of using WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on the WordPress software, or some other CMS.
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 ways to tell if sites are built using WordPress:
View The Page Source Code
If you know how to view 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 …
(View the page source code in the Firefox browser)
Let’s say that you are surfing the web and you visit a website that you like, and you’re wondering 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 page loads on your screen, search for the words “wp-content” either manually …
Or use your browser’s “Find” function …
(Using Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site runs on WordPress or not.
Note: If you cannot find “wp-content” in the source code, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if a site was built using the WordPress software, as we will soon see.
As the point of this post is to help non “techies”, however, we have listed below a number of easy ways to check if your web site is built with WordPress other than searching the source code.
Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the obvious thing to do, some website developers, for whatever reason, will build clients a website and not tell them it’s WordPress.
If you have an existing web site and you can’t tell what application was used to build it, just ask your webmaster or whoever built your website if your website was built with WordPress.
That was simple, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach your website developer, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while browsing the net late at night and want to know if the site was built with WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WP theme where the website templates have not been modified, you will often see a “Powered by WordPress” notice shown in the footer section …
(Powered by WordPress – site footer section)
If the methods above haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of telling whether a website uses WordPress or not …
Tools That Tell You If A Website Was Built Using WordPress
Here are a couple of tools that can tell you if your website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP – WordPress Website Checker
(Is It WP)
IsItWP.com is a free online tool that can check if a website uses WordPress or not.
Using this site is really quite simple. Just type in or paste in the URL of the website into the search field and click the button next to it.
It will then go and search through the URL pages and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, which version of WordPress the site is currently using …
If the site is not a WP-driven website, you will see a message similar to the one below …
To use this tool, 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 Theme 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 – Web Browser Add-On (Firefox / Chrome)
(Wappalyzer.com)
If you browse the net using either the Firefox or Chrome browsers and would like to be able to instantly tell if the sites that you are visiting were built using WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a useful extension to add to your web browser.
Wappalyzer tells you what software is installed in 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 very easy to install and easy to use.
Once you have installed the Wappalyzer extension on your web browser, icons will appear in your web browser menu, in the URL field identifying which software is installed on all the sites you visit …
If the WordPress icon displays on the browser menu (as the above screen shot shows), then the site uses WordPress.
(This site uses WordPress!)
Visit the Wappalyzer web browser extension site here:
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, go here:
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, go here:
I hope you have found this tutorial useful.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum