Once upon a time and not so long ago, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell the difference between the two.
Then the WordPress CMS came along and everything changed. Now, it’s becoming harder to tell if a site is running on “blogging” tools like the WP CMS, or if it’s been developed using web-building software. 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 kind of web application is actually powering the site.
(Can You Tell Which Application Is Powering Your Website?)
For website owners, understanding the difference between a CMS application 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 matter to most website owners, like web development costs, ease of use, ability to keep 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 turns out to be fairly expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking site, but for a fraction of the cost of getting site ”A” above built.
If you picked option ”B” above, then you need to learn more about WordPress, why WordPress can be used to create an eye-catching website that will probably cost far less to build than websites built using a website development tool … 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 budget-friendly CMS application 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 beginner with no web design skills to use, yet it offers an array of helpful features that make your web site more effective when it comes to getting your content published, promoting visitor engagement, generating business leads and sales, enhancing your site’s functionality, 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 could probably be powered by WordPress too.
And if you don’t have a website yet, or are considering 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 something similarly built for your business for very little cost?
Is My Web Site WordPress?
Do you need to know if your website was built using WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to our site because you’ve heard or read about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on the WordPress software, 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 ways to tell if sites are built with WordPress:
Search Your Page’s Source Code For A Tell-Tale WordPress Footprint
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 that the site was built using WordPress …
(Viewing page source code in the Firefox web browser)
Let’s say that you are surfing the web and you come across a website 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.
After the source code of the page loads on your screen, search for words like “wp-content” either by scanning the code …
Or use the browser’s “Find” function …
(Use the Firefox web browser ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site runs on WordPress or not.
Note: If you cannot locate “wp-content” in the page source code, it does not necessarily mean that the site you’re looking at is not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if a site was built using WordPress, as we will soon be discussing.
As the focus of this article is to help non-technical users, however, we have listed below a number of easier methods you can use to check if your site is built using WordPress other than looking through the source code.
Just Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the most obvious thing to do, some 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 webmaster or whoever built your site if your website has been built using WordPress.
That was simple, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t get in touch with your website developer, 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 using WordPress?
Check Below Footer
If the site uses a WP theme and the theme templates have not been edited, you can often find a “Powered by WordPress” notice showing below the footer area …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress)
If these simple methods aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of telling whether a website was built with WordPress or not …
Sites That Can Tell You If A Website Has Been Built With WordPress
Here are a some tools that will tell you if the website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP
(Is It WP)
IsItWP.com is a free online tool that can tell you if a website was built using WordPress or not.
Using this site is really quite easy. Just enter the URL of the site into the URL field and click the button.
It will search through the URL and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, it will even tell you which version of WordPress the site is currently using …
If the web site is not a WordPress-powered website, you will see a message similar to the one shown 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 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 – Browser Add-On (Firefox / Chrome)
(Wappalyzer)
If you use a web browser such as Firefox or Google Chrome and want to be able to know if the sites that you are visiting are WordPress sites, then Wappalyzer is a great add-on to install on your web browser.
Wappalyzer tells you what type of 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 an easy to install and very easy to use browser add-on.
Once you have installed Wappalyzer, icons will show up in your web browser identifying which software is installed on the sites you are visiting …
If you see the WordPress icon displayed on your browser menu (as the above screen shot shows), then the site has been built with WordPress.
(This is a WordPress site!)
Visit the Wappalyzer browser 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:
I hope that you have found this tutorial useful.
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