It used to be that blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell blogs and websites apart.
Then the WordPress CMS came along and revolutionized web publishing. Now, it’s becoming almost impossible 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’s under the surface.
(Can You Tell Which Application Is Powering A Website?)
For many website owners, understanding the difference between a Content Management System 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 the majority of website owners care about, 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 much cheaper price than the cost of getting site “A” above.
If you decided to go with site “B”, then you need to learn more about the benefits of using WordPress, why WordPress can provide you with an eye-catching website that will usually end up costing you far less to build than websites which use website-building software … and how to tell these apart!
WordPress is the world’s most popular online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a flexible and powerful content management system suitable for all businesses and non-technical users.
Whether your reason for having an online presence 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 many helpful add-ons that make your web site extremely effective when it comes to 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 being powered by WordPress, chances are that if you already own a website, your site is also driven by the WP CMS.
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 a similar site built for a much smaller cost?
How To Check If A Site Was Built Using WordPress
Do you need to know if a website was built using WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to this page because you’ve heard or read about 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 some simple methods you can use to quickly tell if sites are built using WordPress:
Search The Source Code
If you know how to access 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 …
(How to view your web page source code in the Firefox 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 was 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 words like “wp-content” either by scanning the code visually …
Or using your 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 the words “wp-content” within the source code, it does not necessarily mean that you are not looking at 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 article is to help non “techies”, however, below you will find a number of easier ways to check if your site is built with WordPress other than searching the source code.
Ask Your Website Developer
While this may seem like the logical thing to do, a number of web developers, for whatever reason, may build clients a website and not tell them it’s WordPress.
If you have an existing website and you can’t tell what application is driving it, just ask your developer or whoever built your site if the web site runs on WordPress.
That was easy, 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 browsing the net late at night and you would like to know if it was built using WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WordPress theme where the web template has not been modified, you can often see a “Proudly powered by WordPress” notice showing in the footer section of the site …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress – footer area)
If these simple methods haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …
Sites That Tell You If A Website Is Built With WordPress
Here are a some sites that can tell you if a website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
IsItWP.com – WP Site Checker
(Is It WordPress? – WordPress Website Checker)
Is It WordPress? is a free online tool that tells you if a site runs on WordPress or not.
Using this tool is really quite simple. Just enter the address of the site into the URL field and click the button.
The tool will go through the URL 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 was not built using WordPress, you will get a message similar to 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 – Browser Extension (Firefox / Chrome)
(Wappalyzer – Web Browser Add-On (Firefox / Chrome))
If you use either the Firefox or Chrome browser and would like to be able to tell if the sites that you are visiting are WordPress-driven, then Wappalyzer is a very useful add-on to install on your browser.
Wappalyzer tells you 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 very easy to install and very easy to use.
Once you have installed the Wappalyzer add-on on your browser, icons will show up in your browser menu identifying which technologies are installed on the sites you visit …
If you see the WordPress icon on the browser menu (as the above screen shot shows), 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, go here:
We hope that you have found the above the information in this tutorial useful.
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