It used to be that blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell the difference.
Then the WordPress CMS came along and changed everything. Now, it’s becoming more and more difficult to tell the difference between what software is being used to build the two. 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 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 areas that many website owners care about, like web development costs, ease of use, ability to keep the site up-to-date, managing content, etc.
Think about this …
Which of the options below would you choose?
A) An eye-catching, professional-looking website that is expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking website, but for a fraction of the cost of getting option ”A” built.
If you chose option “B”, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can provide you with a professional-looking website that could cost far less to build than websites which use traditional 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 powerful and easy-to-use content management system 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 newbie with no knowledge of web coding to use, and offers many helpful tools that make your web site extremely effective when it comes to getting your content published and indexed by search engines, promoting visitor engagement, generating business leads and sales, 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, yours is also a WordPress site.
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 a similar site built for your business to a smaller budget if required?
How Can I Tell If A Web Site Was Built With WordPress?
Do you need to know if a website uses WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to this page because you’ve heard wonderful things about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site was built using the WordPress software, or some other CMS.
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 using WordPress:
View The Page Source Code
If you know how to bring up 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 telltale footprint that the site was built with WordPress …
(Viewing page source code in the Firefox browser)
Suppose that you are browsing online and you visit a web site that you like, and you’re wondering if the site runs on WordPress …
First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.
Once the source code of the site loads on your screen, you can search for words like “wp-content” either by visually scanning the code …
Or using your browser’s “Find” function …
(Use the Firefox browser ‘Find’ function)
This will quickly tell you if the site is powered by WordPress or not.
Note: If you do not see “wp-content” in the page source code, it doesn’t mean that this is not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if a site runs on 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 ways to check if your website is built with WordPress other than looking at the source code.
Ask Your Web Developer
While this may seem like the most obvious thing to do, some website developers, for whatever reason, will build their clients a website and not tell them it’s been built with WordPress.
If you paid a website developer or got somebody else to build you a website, just ask your webmaster or whoever built your site if it was built using WordPress.
That was simple, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach your webmaster, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while browsing online and you really would like to know if the site was built using WordPress?
Check Below The Footer
If the site uses a WordPress theme and the template has not been customized, you can typically see a “Powered by WordPress” message showing at the bottom of the site …
(Powered by WordPress – site footer)
If these simple methods haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of telling whether a website uses WordPress or not …
Sites That Tell You If A Website Is Built With WordPress
Here are a couple of sites that will tell you if your website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP
(Is It WP – WordPress Checking Tool)
Is It WP? is a free tool that can tell you if a site uses WordPress or not.
Using this site is really simple. Just paste the address of the site into the URL field and click the button.
The tool will go and search through the URL 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 WP-powered website, you will get a message like the one shown 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.com
(Wappalyzer)
If you use a web browser like Firefox or Chrome and want to be able to instantly tell if the sites that you are visiting are WP-driven, then Wappalyzer is a very useful extension to install on your browser.
Wappalyzer tells you what 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 easy to install and easy to use.
Once you have installed Wappalyzer, icons will appear in your browser menu identifying which software is installed on all the sites you visit …
If the WordPress icon shows up on the browser menu (as the above screen shot shows), then the site has been built with WordPress.
(This is a WordPress site!)
Visit the 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:
We hope that you have found this the information in this tutorial useful.
***
"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