When the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. One could easily tell the difference between the two.
Then the WordPress CMS came along and changed all this. Now, it’s becoming harder to tell blogs and websites apart. Not so much in terms of what the sites are being used for, but in terms of web design and also being able to tell what kind of web application is actually powering the site.
(Can You Tell Which Application Websites Are Built With?)
For website owners, understanding the difference between a Content Management System tool like WordPress and other website-building tools is huge, not so much in terms of the technical differences, but more importantly, in terms of the things that many website owners are mostly concerned with, 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 the options below 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 tiny fraction of the cost of getting site “A” above.
If you went with website “B”, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can give you an expensive-looking website that will usually turn out to be far less expensive to build than websites which are built using a web building tool … and how to tell the two apart!
WordPress is the world’s most used online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a powerful CMS platform that is ideally suited for ”non-techy” website owners.
Whether your reason for having a website or blog is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a beginner with no knowledge of HTML to use and manage, and offers an array of helpful tools that make your web site highly effective in terms of getting your content published, promoting visitor engagement, 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, your website is also powered by WordPress.
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 for very little cost?
Was My Website Built With WordPress? How To Tell
Do you need to know if a website uses WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to this page because you’ve read or heard wonderful things about all of the great benefits and advantages of using WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site was built using 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 some simple methods you can use to quickly tell if sites are powered WordPress:
Look At Your Source Code
If you know how to access 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 tell-tale footprints …
(View the page source code in the Firefox browser)
Suppose that you are browsing online and you come across a site that you like, and you would like to know if the site runs on WordPress …
First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.
In the page’s source code, you can search for words like “wp-content” either manually …
Or using the browser’s “Find” function …
(Use Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site was built with WordPress or not.
Note: If you do not find “wp-content” within the page source code, it doesn’t mean that you are not looking at a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if the site was built using the WordPress software, as we will soon discuss.
As the focus of this post is to help non “techies”, however, we have listed below a number of easy methods you can use to check if your web site is powered by WordPress other than searching through the source code.
Just Ask Your Website Developer
While this may seem like the most obvious thing to do, a number of web developers, for whatever reason, may build clients a website and not tell them it’s WordPress.
If you hired a website developer or got somebody else to build you a website, just ask your web developer or whoever built your site if your website was built using WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach your webmaster, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while browsing the net late at night and you need to know if the site was built using WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WP theme and the site template has not been edited, you will often find a “Powered by WordPress” notice showing at the bottom of the site …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress – site footer)
If these simple methods aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of telling whether a site runs on WordPress or not …
Sites That Tell You If A Website Runs On WordPress
Here are a couple of tools that will tell you if your website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP
(IsItWP.com)
Is It WP is a free tool that lets you quickly check if a site uses WordPress or not.
Using this tool is super easy. Just add the address of the website into the URL field and click the button.
It 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 which version of WordPress it is currently using …
If the site does not run on WordPress, you will get a message like the one 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.com
(Wappalyzer – Add-On For Firefox & Chrome Web Browser)
If you browse the net using either Firefox or Google Chrome and want to be able to see if the sites that you are visiting are WordPress-driven, then Wappalyzer is a great extension to add to your browser.
Wappalyzer identifies what type of software is installed in the sites while you are browsing.
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 to install and easy to use browser extension.
Once you have installed Wappalyzer on your browser, icons will appear in your browser allowing you to see which technologies are installed on all the sites you visit …
If the WordPress icon displays on your browser menu (as shown in the screenshot above), then the site uses WordPress.
(This is a WordPress site!)
Visit the Wappalyzer extension website 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, visit the site below:
We hope you have found the above information useful.
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"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie