When the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. One could easily tell them apart.
Then the WordPress CMS came along and everything changed. Now, it’s becoming harder to tell the difference between what applications are being used to build the two. 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 Your Website Is Powered By?)
For many website owners, understanding the difference between a CMS tool like WordPress and other website-building software 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, such as web development costs, ease of use, ability to maintain the site up-to-date, managing 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 at a much cheaper price than the cost of getting option ”A” built.
If you picked web site “B”, then you need to learn more about WordPress, why WordPress can be used to create an eye-catching website that could end up costing you far less to build than websites which use other web editing applications … and how to tell these apart!
WordPress is the world’s most used online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a budget-friendly CMS platform suitable for businesses on a budget.
Whether your reason for having a digital presence is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a newbie with no web design skills to use, and offers an array of helpful extensions that make your web presence extremely 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 site is also driven by WordPress.
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 website with the design and layout that you like, know that it was built with WordPress and that you can, therefore, get something similarly built quite inexpensively?
Does My Web Site Run On WordPress?
Do you need to know if a website was built using WordPress? Maybe you’ve come here because you’ve heard or read wonderful things about all of the great advantages of using WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site was built using the WordPress software, or some other CMS 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 website has been built using WordPress:
Check The 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 a tell-tale footprint that the site was built using WordPress …
(Viewing the web page source code in the Firefox browser)
Suppose that you are browsing online and you visit a web site that you like, and you would like to know if the site uses WordPress …
First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.
After the source code of the site loads on your screen, search for the words “wp-content” either manually …
Or using the browser’s “Find” function …
(Use Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site is powered by WordPress or not.
Note: If you do not find “wp-content” in the 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 WordPress, as we will soon be discussing.
As the point of this article is to help non-technical users, however, below you will find a number of easy ways to check if your website is built using WordPress other than looking at the source code.
Just Ask Your Web Developer
While this may seem like the most logical thing to do, many website developers, for whatever reason, will build their clients a website and not tell them it’s WordPress.
If you paid a website developer or got somebody else to build your website, just ask your webmaster or whoever built your site if your website was built with WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t get in touch with the person who looks after your site, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while surfing the net late at night and you really would like to know if the site was built using WordPress?
Check Below Footer
If the site uses a WordPress theme and the site theme templates have not been edited, you can often see a “Powered by WordPress” message displayed in the footer area …
(Powered by WordPress)
If these simple methods haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …
Online Tools That Tell You If A Website Was Built Using WordPress
Here are a couple of online applications that can tell you if your website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
IsItWP.com – WordPress Checking Tool
(Is It WP)
Is It WP? is a free online tool that can tell you very quickly if a website uses WordPress or not.
Using this site is really quite simple. Just type the URL of the website into the search field and click the button.
The tool will then go and search through the URL code 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 is not a WordPress-driven site, 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
(Wappalyzer)
If you use a web browser like Firefox or Google Chrome and would like to be able to instantly tell if the sites that you are visiting are powered by WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a great extension for your browser.
Wappalyzer helps you identify what software is installed on 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 very easy to install.
Once you have installed Wappalyzer on your web browser, icons will appear in your web browser identifying which software is installed on all the sites you visit …
If you see the WordPress icon displayed on the browser menu (as shown in the screen shot above), then the site has been built with WordPress.
(This website has been built with WordPress!)
Go here to visit the Wappalyzer web browser add-on site:
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, visit the site below:
We hope that you have found the above the information in this tutorial useful.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)