Once upon a time and not so long ago, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell the two apart.
Then the WordPress CMS came along and everything changed. Now, it’s getting more difficult 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.
(Can You Tell Which Application Websites Are Built With?)
For 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, 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 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 site, but at a fraction of the cost of getting option ”A” above built.
If you selected site ”B” above, then you need to know more about the benefits of using WordPress, why WordPress can give you a stunning 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 preferred 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 technical skills to use and manage, yet it offers an array of helpful tools that make your web site extremely effective in terms of getting your content published, 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 considering getting one 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 something similarly built for your business for a much smaller cost?
Is It A WP Blog?
Do you need to know if your website uses WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to our site because you’ve heard 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 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 ways to tell if sites are running on WordPress:
View Your Page Source Code
If you know how to check 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 telltale footprints that the site was built with WordPress …
(View your web page source code using the Firefox web browser)
Let’s say that you are surfing the web and you visit a site that you like, and you’re wondering if the site is built with WordPress …
First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.
In the source code, search for “wp-content” either by scanning the code visually …
Or use your 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 cannot see “wp-content” in the page source code, it does not mean that the site you’re looking at is not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if a 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 searching through the source code.
Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the logical thing to do, some website development agencies, for whatever reason, will build their clients a website and not tell them it’s WordPress.
If you have an existing web site and you can’t tell what CMS application is driving it, just ask your developer or whoever built your website if your site was built with WordPress.
That was simple, 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 surfing online and would like to know if the site was built using WordPress?
Check Below Footer
If the site uses a WP theme where the site templates have not been customized, you will often see a “Powered by WordPress” message showing in the footer section …
(Powered by WordPress)
If the simple methods above haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of telling whether a website was built with WordPress or not …
Tools That Can Tell You If A Website Uses WordPress
Here are a couple of tools that can tell you if a website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WordPress? – WP Site Checking Tool
(IsItWP.com)
Is It WordPress? is a free tool that lets you quickly check if a website uses WordPress or not.
Using this site is very easy. Just paste the URL of the website into the search field and click the button next to it.
It will then go through the URL files and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, it will even tell you which version of WordPress it is currently using …
If the web site is not a WP-driven site, you will see 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 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 – Browser Add-On (Firefox / Chrome)
(Wappalyzer.com)
If you browse the net using either the Firefox or Chrome browsers and want to be able to see if the sites that you are visiting are WordPress sites, then Wappalyzer is a very useful extension for your web browser.
Wappalyzer identifies 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.”
Wappalyzer is also very easy to install and very easy to use.
Once you have installed Wappalyzer on your browser, icons will display in your web browser allowing you to see which technologies are being used by all the sites you are visiting …
If the WordPress icon displays on your browser menu (as shown in the screenshot above), then the site has been built with WordPress.
(A WordPress site!)
Visit the website 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, visit the site below:
I hope that you have found this the information in this tutorial useful.
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