It used to be that blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell the difference.
Then WordPress came along and everything changed. Now, it’s getting almost impossible 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 website design and also being able to tell what’s “under the hood”.
(Can You Tell Which Application A Website Has Been Built With?)
For many website owners, understanding the difference between a Content Management System 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 things that matter to most website owners, 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 these options 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 at a cost that turns out to be significantly less than the cost of getting option ”A” built.
If you picked website “B”, then you need to know more about the benefits of using WordPress, why WordPress can give you an expensive-looking website that will normally cost far less to build than websites which use web-building software … and how to tell the two apart!
WordPress is the world’s leading online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a powerful and easy-to-use CMS application that is ideally suited for all types of businesses.
Whether your reason for having an online presence is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a novice with no web design skills to use, and offers many helpful add-ons that make your web presence more effective when it comes to 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, yours is also a WordPress site.
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 a similar site built quite inexpensively?
Was My Website Built With WordPress? Tell-Tale Signs & WordPress-Checking Tools
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 was built using 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 a number of methods you can use to quickly tell if a web site is powered by WordPress:
View Your Page Source Code
If you know how to access 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 an obvious tell-tale footprint that the site was built using WordPress …
(Viewing the web page source code using the Firefox browser)
Let’s say that you are browsing online and you come across a website that you like, and you wonder if the site uses WordPress …
First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.
In the page’s source code, search for the words “wp-content” either by scanning the code with your eyes …
Or use the browser’s “Find” function …
(Using Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will quickly tell you if the site runs on WordPress or not.
Note: If you do not find “wp-content” in the page source code, it does not necessarily mean that you are not looking at a WordPress site.
There are other ways to find out if the site runs on WordPress, as we will soon discuss.
As the focus of this post is to help non-technical users, however, below you will find a number of easy methods you can use to check if your site 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 web development agencies, for whatever reason, may build clients a website and not tell them it’s been built with WordPress.
If you used a website developer or got somebody else to build your website, just ask your web developer or whoever built your web site if your site runs on WordPress.
That was simple, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach the person who looks after your site, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while surfing online and need to know if it was built with WordPress?
Check Below The Footer
If the site uses a WP theme and the them template has not been modified, you will often find a “Proudly powered by WordPress” message shown at the bottom of the site …
(Powered by WordPress)
If the simple methods above aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of telling whether a site was built using WordPress or not …
Online Tools That Tell You If A Website Was Built Using WordPress
Here are a some tools that will tell you if a 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 tool is super simple. Just enter the address of the website into the search field and click the button next to it.
It will then go 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 site is not powered by WordPress, 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 – Extension For Firefox / Chrome Browser
(Wappalyzer – Add-On For Firefox & Chrome Browser)
If you use either the Firefox or Chrome web browser and want to be able to see if the sites that you are visiting were built using WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a very useful add-on to add to your web browser.
Wappalyzer helps you identify 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.”
Wappalyzer is also very easy to install and very easy to use.
Once you have installed Wappalyzer, icons will display in your browser, in the URL field allowing you to see which software is being used by the sites you are visiting …
If you see the WordPress icon on the browser menu (as the above screenshot shows), then the site has been built with WordPress.
(This is a WordPress site!)
Visit the Wappalyzer extension site 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, go here:
We hope you have found this information useful.
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