When the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell them apart.
Then WordPress came along and changed everything. Now, it’s becoming 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”.
(It’s Getting Harder To Tell Websites Built With Web Development Tools Vs ‘Blogging’ Software!)
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 many website owners are mostly concerned with, like web development costs, ease of use, ability to keep the website 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 actually expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking site, but at a much cheaper cost than the cost of getting site ”A” above built.
If you chose web site “B”, then you need to learn more about WordPress, why WordPress can be used to create an eye-catching website that will normally cost far less to build than websites built using a website building tool … and how to tell these apart!
WordPress is the world’s leading online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a budget-friendly content management system that is ideally suited for most types of business applications.
Whether your reason for having an online presence is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a newbie with no knowledge of HTML to use, and offers many helpful tools that make your web presence highly 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, your site is probably powered by WordPress too.
And if you don’t have a website yet, or are considering getting one 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 a similar site built quite inexpensively?
Tell-Tale Signs It’s A WordPress Blog And WP-Checking Tools
Do you need to know if a website is powered by 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 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 a number of ways to tell if sites are running on WordPress:
View The 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 obvious tell-tale footprints …
(How to view web page source code in Firefox)
Let’s say that you are surfing the web and you come across a site that you like, and you wonder 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, search for words like “wp-content” either by visually scanning the code …
Or use the browser’s “Find” function …
(Use the Firefox browser ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site was built with WordPress or not.
Note: If you are unable to see the words “wp-content” in the source code, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are not looking at a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if a site was built using WordPress, as we will soon be discussing.
As the focus of this article is to help non “techies”, however, below you will find a number of easy methods you can use to check if your site is powered by WordPress other than viewing the source code.
Ask Your Website Developer
While this may seem like the logical thing to do, many website developers, for whatever reason, may build clients a website and not tell them it’s been built with WordPress.
If you have an existing web site and you’re not sure what CMS application is driving it, just ask your webmaster or whoever built your web site if your website runs on WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t get in touch with your website developer, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while browsing online and you need to know if it was built with WordPress?
Check Below The Footer
If the site uses a WP theme and the template has not been modified, you will often see a “Proudly powered by WordPress” message showing below the footer area …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress)
If the methods above haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of telling whether a website was built using WordPress or not …
Online Tools That Can Tell You If A Website Was Built Using WordPress
Here are a some online applications that can tell you if a website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP – WordPress Checker
(Is It WP – WordPress Website Checking Tool)
IsItWP.com is a free online tool that can check if a website uses WordPress or not.
Using this site is very easy. Just add the address of the site into the search field and click the button next to it.
The tool will then go and search through the URL and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, it will even tell you which version of WordPress the site is currently using …
If the site is not a WP-powered site, you will get a message like the one shown in the screen shot 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
(Wappalyzer – Add-On For Firefox / Chrome Browser)
If you browse the net using either Firefox or Chrome and want to be able to know if the sites that you are visiting are powered by WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a useful extension 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.”
Wappalyzer is also a very easy add-on to install and use.
Once you have installed the Wappalyzer extension on your browser, icons will display in your web browser allowing you to see which technologies are being used by the sites you visit …
If you see the WordPress icon on the browser menu (as shown in the screenshot above), then the site uses WordPress.
(This website has been built with WordPress!)
Go here to visit the Wappalyzer browser extension website:
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 the above the information in this tutorial useful.
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