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 everything. Now, it’s getting harder to tell blogs and websites apart. 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 type of web application is actually powering the site.
(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, regarding the areas that many website owners are concerned with, such as web development costs, ease of use, ability to maintain the site 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 site, but for a tiny fraction of the cost of getting site “A” above.
If you chose web site “B”, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can provide you with a stunning website that could turn out to be much less expensive to build than websites which are built with a website building tool … and how to tell the two types apart!
WordPress is the world’s most used online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a budget-friendly CMS platform that is ideally suited for most types of business applications.
Whether your reason for having a website or blog is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a novice with no web design skills to use and manage, and offers a range of helpful features 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, 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 one 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 quite inexpensively?
How To Check If Your Site Is A WordPress Web Site
Do you need to know if a website is powered by WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to our site because you’ve heard or read about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site was built using 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 site is running on WordPress:
Look At The Source Code
If you know how to check 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 an obvious tell-tale footprint …
(Viewing page source code using Firefox)
Let’s say that you are browsing online and you visit a site that you like, and you wonder 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 “wp-content” either by visually scanning the code …
Or use 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 the words “wp-content” in the page source code, it does not mean that this is not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to find out if the site was built using the WordPress software, as we will soon see.
As the focus of this article is to help non-technical users, however, below you will find a number of easier methods you can use to check if your website is powered by WordPress other than looking at the source code.
Simply Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the most logical thing to do, many website developers, for whatever reason, will 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 developer or whoever built your website if the web site has been built with WordPress.
That was simple, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach your webmaster, or what if you’ve come across a website that you really like while surfing online and you want to know if the site was built with WordPress?
Check Below The Footer
If the site uses a WP theme and the templates have not been customized, you can often find a “Powered by WordPress” notice displayed at the bottom of the site …
(Powered by WordPress)
If these simple methods aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of telling whether a website runs on WordPress or not …
Sites That Tell You If A Website Was Built Using WordPress
Here are a some tools that will tell you if a particular website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WordPress? – WordPress Checking Tool
(Is It WordPress? – WP Site Checking Tool)
Is It WordPress? is a free tool that tells you if a website uses WordPress or not.
Using this tool is really quite simple. Just add the address of the site into the URL field and click the button next to it.
It will go and search through the URL files 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 does not run on WordPress, you will see a message similar to 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 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
(Wappalyzer – Extension For Firefox / Chrome Browser)
If you browse the net using either Firefox or Google Chrome and would like to be able to tell if the sites that you are visiting were built using WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a great add-on for your web browser.
Wappalyzer identifies 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.”
It’s also a very easy extension to install and use.
After installing the Wappalyzer extension on your web browser, icons will show up in your browser allowing you to see which software is installed on the sites you are visiting …
If the WordPress icon shows up on your browser menu (as the above screenshot shows), then the site uses WordPress.
(This site has been built with WordPress!)
To visit the site, go 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, 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, go here:
We hope you have found the above the information in 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