Once upon a time and not so long ago, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. One could easily tell the two apart.
Then the WordPress CMS came along and changed all this. Now, it’s getting increasingly 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’s “under the hood”.
(Can You Tell Which Application Websites Are Built With?)
For many website owners, understanding the difference between a CMS 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 areas that the majority of website owners are mostly 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 these options would you choose?
A) An eye-catching, professional-looking website that is actually expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking site, but at a cost that is significantly less than the cost of getting site ”A”.
If you decided to go with option ”B” above, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can provide you with an eye-catching website that could turn out to be far less expensive to build than websites built using a web building application … 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 flexible and powerful CMS suitable for most types of business applications.
Whether your reason for having a website is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a novice with no knowledge of coding to use, and offers many helpful extensions that make your web presence highly effective when it comes to getting your content published, promoting visitor engagement, generating business leads and sales, enhancing your site’s functionality, etc.
With almost one in every five websites around the world being powered by WordPress, chances are that if you already own a website, your site is also driven by the WordPress CMS.
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?
The Easy Way To Tell If Your Website Runs On WP Software
Do you need to know if your 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 the WordPress software, or some other website application.
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 ways to tell if a site is running on WordPress:
Search Your Page 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 telltale footprints that the site was built using WordPress …
(How to view page source code in the Firefox web browser)
Let’s say that you are surfing the web and you visit a website that you like, and you would like to know if the site is built with 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 by visually scanning the code …
Or using your browser’s “Find” function …
(Using the Firefox web browser ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site was built with WordPress or not.
Note: If you cannot find “wp-content” in the source code, it does not mean that you are not looking at a WordPress site.
There are other ways to find out if the site was built using the WordPress software, as we will soon discuss.
As the point of this article is to help non-technical users, however, we have listed below a number of easy methods you can use to check if your site is built with WordPress other than scanning the source code.
Simply Ask Your Website Developer
While this may seem like the most obvious thing to do, many web development agencies, for whatever reason, may build clients a website and not tell them it’s WordPress.
If you have an existing web site and you’re not sure what application is driving it, just ask your developer or whoever built your website if your site 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 surfing the net late at night and you want to know if the site was built using WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WordPress theme where the website templates have not been edited, you will often find a “Powered by WordPress” message showing at the bottom of the site …
(Powered by WordPress – footer area)
If these simple methods haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of telling whether a site runs on WordPress or not …
Tools That Tell You If A Website Uses WordPress
Here are a some online applications that will tell you if a particular website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP – WP Checking Tool
(IsItWP.com)
IsItWP.com is a free tool that can tell you if a site runs on WordPress or not.
Using this site is super easy. Just add the address of the website into the search field and click the button.
The tool will then search through the URL and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, it will even tell you the version of WordPress it is currently using …
If the web site is not a WP-powered website, you will get a message like 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 – Add-On For Firefox / Chrome Web Browser
(Wappalyzer – Extension For Firefox & Chrome Browser)
If you use a web browser like Firefox or Google Chrome and would like to be able to tell if the sites that you are visiting use WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a very useful add-on to install on your web browser.
Wappalyzer tells you what type of software is installed on 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.”
It’s also a very easy add-on to install and use.
After installing Wappalyzer, icons will display in your web browser allowing you to see which technologies are installed on all the sites you visit …
If you see the WordPress icon showing on the browser menu (as shown in the screenshot above), 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, go here:
We hope you have found this tutorial useful.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group