When the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell the difference.
Then WordPress came along and changed everything. Now, it’s getting harder to tell if the site was built with a “blogging” CMS tool like WordPress, or if it’s been developed using website-building software. 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 surface.
(Can You Tell Which Application Is Powering Your Website?)
For many website owners, understanding the difference between a Content Management System tool like WordPress and other website-building software is huge, not so much in terms of the technical differences, but more importantly, regarding the areas that matter to most website owners, like web development costs, ease of use, ability to keep the website up-to-date, managing web content, etc.
Think about this …
Which of the following options 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 tiny fraction of the cost of getting option ”A” above built.
If you went with option “B”, then you need to learn more about the benefits of using WordPress, why WordPress can provide you with a beautiful website that could turn out to be much less expensive to build than websites built using traditional website editing applications … and how to tell these two types 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 suitable for all types of businesses.
Whether your reason for having a website or blog is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a novice with no web design skills to use and manage, yet it offers an array of helpful features that make your web presence highly 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 currently being powered by WordPress, chances are that if you already own a website, your site is also driven by the WordPress CMS.
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 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 a much smaller cost?
The Easy Way To Tell If Your Blog Was Built Using The WordPress CMS Platform
Do you need to know if a website was built using WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to our site because you’ve heard or read about all of the great benefits of using 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 a number of ways to tell if a web site has been built with WordPress:
Search The Source Code For WordPress Footprints
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 obvious telltale footprints …
(Viewing the web page source code using the Firefox browser)
Let’s say that you are surfing the web 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.
Once the source code of the page loads on your screen, search for the words “wp-content” either by visually scanning the code …
Or use your browser’s “Find” function …
(Use the Firefox web browser ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site was built using WordPress or not.
Note: If you cannot find “wp-content” in the source code, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the website is not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to find out if the site runs on WordPress, as we will soon see.
As the point of this post is to try and help non-technical users, however, below you will find a number of easy methods you can use to check if your site is built using WordPress other than viewing the source code.
Simply Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the most obvious thing to do, a number of web development agencies, 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 can’t tell what CMS application is driving it, just ask your developer or whoever built your site if your website has been built with WordPress.
That was simple, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach the person who looks after your website, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while surfing the net late at night and you really need to know if it was built using WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WordPress theme where the template has not been customized, you will typically see a “Proudly powered by WordPress” message displayed below the footer section …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress)
If the simple methods above 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 sites that can tell you if the website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WordPress? – WP Checker
(Is It WP – WordPress Checking Tool)
Is It WP is a free tool that lets you check if a website uses WordPress or not.
Using this site is super easy. Just enter the URL of the website into the URL field and click the button next to it.
It will then search through the URL and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, it will even tell you the version of WordPress it is currently using …
If the site is not a WordPress-driven website, you will get a message similar to 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 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 – Browser Add-On (Firefox / Chrome)
(Wappalyzer – Extension For Firefox / Chrome Browser)
If you browse the net using either Firefox or Google Chrome and want to be able to know if the sites that you are visiting are WP-driven, then Wappalyzer is a useful extension for your web browser.
Wappalyzer identifies what software is installed in 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.”
It’s also an easy web browser extension to install and use.
Once you have installed Wappalyzer, icons will show up in your browser allowing you to see which technologies are being used by all the sites you visit …
If the WordPress icon shows up on your browser menu (as the above screen shot shows), then the site has been built with WordPress.
(This website uses WordPress!)
To learn more, go 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 that you have found the above 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