When the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. One could easily tell the two apart.
Then the WordPress CMS came along and revolutionized web publishing. Now, it’s becoming more difficult to tell if a site is running on “blogging” applications like the WP publishing platform, or if it’s been created using a website editing application. 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 hood”.
(It’s Getting Harder To Tell Websites Built With Web Development Tools Vs ‘Blogging’ Software!)
For 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, regarding the areas 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 options below would you choose?
A) An eye-catching, professional-looking website that turns out to be fairly expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking website, but at a much cheaper price than the cost of getting option ”A” built.
If you decided to go with website “B”, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can be used to create an eye-catching website that will usually cost far less to build than websites which are built using other web development tools … and how to tell these apart!
WordPress is the world’s leading online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a flexible and powerful CMS application that is ideally suited for ”non-techy” website owners.
Whether your reason for having a website is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a novice with no knowledge of HTML to use and manage, and offers many helpful tools that make your web presence extremely effective in terms of getting your content published and indexed by search engines, promoting visitor interaction, 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 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 your business quite inexpensively?
Tell-Tale Signs It’s A WordPress Web Site And WordPress-Checking Tools
Do you need to know if your website was built using WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to this page because you’ve read about all of the great benefits of using WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on 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 some simple methods you can use to quickly tell if a site has been built using WordPress:
Look At Your 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 telltale footprints …
(Viewing web page source code using the Firefox web browser)
Suppose that you are surfing the web and you visit a site that you like, and you would like to know if the site runs on WordPress …
First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.
In the page’s source code, you can search for the words “wp-content” either by visually scanning the code …
Or using the browser’s “Find” function …
(Using 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 the words “wp-content” in the source code, it does not necessarily mean that the site you’re looking at 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 focus of this post is to help non “techies”, however, we have listed below a number of easy ways to check if your website is built using WordPress other than searching through the source code.
Just Ask Your Web Developer
While this may seem like the most logical thing to do, some web developers, 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 developer or whoever built your site if your website runs on WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach your website developer, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while surfing online and you would like to know if it was built using WordPress?
Check Below The Footer
If the site uses a WordPress theme and the templates have not been modified, you can typically find a “Powered by WordPress” notice shown at the bottom of the site …
(Powered by WordPress)
If these simple methods aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of telling whether a site uses WordPress or not …
Tools That Tell You If A Website Runs On WordPress
Here are a some tools that can tell you if a website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WordPress? – WP Checking Tool
(Is It WP)
Is It WP? is a free tool that can tell you if a website was built with WordPress or not.
Using this tool is really easy. Just enter the URL of the website into the URL field and click the button.
The tool will then search through the URL code and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, it will even tell you the version of WordPress the site is currently using …
If the site is not a WordPress-powered website, 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 – Extension For Firefox / Chrome Web Browser
(Wappalyzer – Browser Add-On (Firefox / Chrome))
If you browse the net using either Firefox or Chrome and want to be able to see if the sites that you are visiting use WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a useful add-on for your web browser.
Wappalyzer identifies what type of 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 an easy to install and easy to use web browser add-on.
Once you have installed Wappalyzer, icons will appear in your web browser, in the URL field identifying which software is being used by all the sites you visit …
If you see the WordPress icon displayed on your browser menu (as shown in the screen shot above), then the site uses WordPress.
(This is a WordPress site!)
To visit the website, 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:
I hope you have found this the information in this tutorial useful.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum