When the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell the difference between the two.
Then WordPress came along and changed all this. Now, it’s becoming harder to tell the difference between blogs and websites. 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’s “under the hood”.
(It’s Getting Harder To Tell Websites Built With Web Development Tools Vs ‘Blogging’ Software!)
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, regarding the areas 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 the options below 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 website, but at a much cheaper price than the cost of getting option ”A” above built.
If you decided to go with site “B”, then you need to learn more about the benefits of using WordPress, why WordPress can give you a stunning website that will typically end up costing you far less to build than websites which use other website editing applications … and how to tell the two types apart!
WordPress is the world’s leading online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a flexible and powerful CMS platform that is ideally suited for businesses on a budget.
Whether your reason for having a website is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a beginner with no programming skills to use and manage, and offers an array of helpful features that make your web site more effective in terms of getting your content published, promoting visitor engagement, generating business leads and sales, scalability, 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 website could probably be powered by WordPress too.
And if you don’t have a website yet, or are thinking of 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 very little cost?
How Can I Tell If A Site Was Built Using WordPress?
Do you need to know if a website uses WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to this page because you’ve heard or read about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on 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 some simple methods you can use to quickly tell if sites are powered WordPress:
View Your Source Code
If you know how to search 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 that the site was built using WordPress …
(Viewing the web page source code using Firefox)
Let’s say that you are surfing the web and you visit 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 source code, you can search for “wp-content” either manually …
Or using the browser’s “Find” function …
(Using Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site was built using WordPress or not.
Note: If you cannot find “wp-content” within the page source code, it does not necessarily mean that this is not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if a site runs on WordPress, as we will soon discuss.
As the point of this article is to try and help non “techies”, however, we have listed below a number of easy ways to check if your website is built with WordPress other than scanning the source code.
Simply Ask Your Website Developer
While this may seem like the most logical thing to do, some website development companies, for whatever reason, will build clients a website and not tell them it’s been built with WordPress.
If you have an existing website and you’re not sure what CMS application was used to build it, just ask your web developer or whoever built your web site if it was built using WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t get in touch with your webmaster, or what if you’ve come across a website that you really like while browsing the net late at night and need to know if it was built with WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WP theme and the template has not been customized, you will often see a “Powered by WordPress” message showing in the footer area …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress – footer area)
If these simple methods haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …
Online Tools That Can Tell You If A Website Was Built Using WordPress
Here are a some online applications that will tell you if your website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP
(Is It WordPress? – WordPress Website Checking Tool)
Is It WordPress? is a free tool that can check if a website was built using WordPress or not.
Using this tool is really easy. Just type the address of the website into the search field and click the button.
The tool will then search through the URL files and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, which version of WordPress it is currently using …
If the web site was not built using WordPress, you will get 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 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 Browser
(Wappalyzer)
If you use either the Firefox or Google Chrome web browser and want to be able to tell if the sites that you are visiting are WP sites, then Wappalyzer is a very useful extension to install on your web browser.
Wappalyzer tells you what 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.”
It’s also very easy to install and easy to use.
After installing Wappalyzer, icons will show up in your browser menu identifying which software is being used by all the sites you are visiting …
If the WordPress icon displays on your browser menu (as the above screenshot shows), then the site uses WordPress.
(This is a WordPress site!)
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, 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 you have found this 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