Once upon a time and not so long ago, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell them apart.
Then WordPress came along and revolutionized web publishing and web content management. Now, it’s becoming 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 web design and also being able to tell what’s under the surface.
(Can You Tell Which Application Your Website Is Powered By?)
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, regarding the things that many website owners care most about, like web development costs, ease of use, ability to keep 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 cost that turns out to be significantly less than the cost of getting site ”A”.
If you selected option “B”, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can give you an eye-catching website that could turn out to be much less expensive to build than websites built with other website editor tools … and how to tell these apart!
WordPress is the world’s preferred online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a budget-friendly content management tool suitable for small, medium and even large 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 technical skills to use, and offers an array of helpful tools 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 WordPress.
And if you don’t have a website yet, or are considering getting a website 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 something similarly built for very little cost?
Is It A WordPress Web Site?
Do you need to know if your website is powered by WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to our site because you’ve heard about 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 sites are powered WordPress:
Search Your Page’s Source Code For The WordPress Footprint
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 that the site was built using WordPress …
(Viewing page source code in the Firefox web browser)
Let’s say that you are surfing the web and you visit a web site that you like, and you’re wondering if the site is built using 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 words like “wp-content” either manually …
Or use the browser’s “Find” function …
(Using the Firefox browser ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site runs on WordPress or not.
Note: If you are unable to find “wp-content” within the source code, it does not mean that you are not looking at a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if the site was built using WordPress, as we will soon see.
As the point of this post is to try and help non “techies”, however, below you will find a number of easy ways to check if your web site is built with WordPress other than looking at 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, will build their clients a website and not tell them it’s WordPress.
If you have an existing web site and you’re not sure what application is driving it, just ask your webmaster or whoever built your web site if the web site was built with WordPress.
That was simple, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach the person who looks after your site, or what if you’ve come across a website that you really like while surfing the net late at night and you really want to know if the site was built using WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WP theme where the templates have not been customized, you can typically see a “Proudly powered by WordPress” message showing in the footer section of the site …
(Powered by WordPress)
If the methods above aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …
Sites That Can Tell You If A Website Runs On WordPress
Here are a some sites that will tell you if a particular website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
IsItWP.com – WordPress Website Checking Tool
(IsItWP.com – WP Checking Tool)
IsItWP.com is a free tool that tells you if a site runs on WordPress or not.
Using this site is super simple. Just type in or paste in the URL of the site into the search field and click the button.
The tool will then go and search 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 the site is currently using …
If the web site is not a WP site, you will get a message similar to the one shown 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 – Browser Add-On (Firefox / Chrome)
(Wappalyzer.com)
If you browse the net using either the Firefox or Google Chrome browsers and want to be able to know if the sites that you are visiting are WordPress-powered, then Wappalyzer is a great add-on to install on your browser.
Wappalyzer helps you identify what 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.”
It’s also very easy to install.
After installing Wappalyzer, icons will display in your browser menu allowing you to see which software is installed on all the sites you are visiting …
If you see the WordPress icon displayed on your browser menu (as shown in the screen shot above), then the site has been built with WordPress.
(A WordPress site!)
Visit the site 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 you have found this information useful.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)