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 everything changed. Now, it’s getting harder to tell the difference between blogs and websites. 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 kind of web application is actually powering the site.
(It’s Getting Harder To Tell Websites Built With Web Development Tools Vs ‘Blogging’ Software!)
For many website owners, understanding the difference between a Content Management System application like WordPress and other website-building software 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 keep the site up-to-date, managing web 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 site, but at a cost that is significantly less than the cost of getting option ”A”.
If you chose site “B”, then you need to know more about the benefits of using WordPress, why WordPress can give you an eye-catching website that could end up costing you far less to build than websites built using other web editing applications … and how to tell the two apart!
WordPress is the world’s preferred online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a budget-friendly CMS suitable for businesses on a budget.
Whether your reason for having a website is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a newbie with no web design skills to use, yet it offers many helpful extensions that make your web site more effective when it comes to getting your content published, promoting visitor interaction, generating business leads and sales, enhancing your site’s capabilities, 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 considering 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 quite inexpensively?
The Easy Way To Tell If Your Website Runs On WordPress
Do you need to know if your website is powered by WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to our site because you’ve read about all of the great advantages of using WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on the WordPress software, 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 site has been built with WordPress:
View The Source Code
If you know how to view 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 that the site was built using WordPress …
(How to view your web page source code using the Firefox browser)
Let’s say that you are surfing the web and you visit 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.
After the source code of the site loads on your screen, search for the words “wp-content” either by scanning the code visually …
Or use the browser’s “Find” function …
(Using Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will quickly tell you if the site is powered by WordPress or not.
Note: If you cannot find “wp-content” within the page 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 discuss.
As the focus of this post is to try and help non-technical users, however, below you will find a number of easier methods you can use to check if your site is built with WordPress other than viewing the source code.
Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the most logical thing to do, a number of web developers, for whatever reason, may build clients a website and not tell them it’s been built with WordPress.
If you used the services of a website developer or got somebody else to build your website, just ask your developer or whoever built your web site if it was built using WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t get in touch with the person who looks after your website, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while browsing the net late at night and want to know if it was built using WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WP theme and the web template has not been edited, you can typically find a “Proudly powered by WordPress” notice displayed below the footer section …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress)
If these simple methods aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of telling whether a website runs on WordPress or not …
Sites That Can Tell You If A Website Was Built Using WordPress
Here are a some sites that can tell you if a particular website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP
(IsItWP.com)
Is It WP is a free online tool that can check if a website runs on WordPress or not.
Using this tool is very easy. Just type the URL of the website into the search field and click the button.
The tool will go and search through the site code 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 has not been built with WordPress, you will get a message like the one shown 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.com
(Wappalyzer.com)
If you browse the net using either the Firefox or Google Chrome web browsers and would like to be able to instantly tell if the sites that you are visiting are WP sites, then Wappalyzer is a great add-on to add to your web browser.
Wappalyzer helps you identify what type of 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 extension to install and use.
Once you have installed the Wappalyzer add-on on your web browser, icons will appear in your web browser menu, in the URL field identifying which software is being used by all the sites you visit …
If you see the WordPress icon showing on your browser menu (as shown in the screenshot above), then the site uses WordPress.
(A WordPress site!)
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, visit the site below:
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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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now