When the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. One could easily tell the difference.
Then WordPress came along and everything changed. Now, it’s getting increasingly 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 web design and also being able to tell what’s under the surface.
(Can You Tell Which Application Is Powering Your Website?)
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, in terms of the areas that matter to most website owners, such as web development costs, ease of use, ability to keep the website up-to-date, managing web content, etc.
Think about this …
Which of these options 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 site, but at a much cheaper cost than the cost of getting option ”A”.
If you picked option ”B” above, then you need to learn more about WordPress, why WordPress can give you a stunning website that will normally cost far less to build than websites built using web-building software … and how to tell these apart!
WordPress is the world’s preferred online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a powerful and easy-to-use content management software 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 beginner with no technical knowledge to use and manage, and offers an array of helpful features that make your website highly effective when it comes to getting your content published and indexed by search engines, promoting visitor interaction, generating business leads and sales, enhancing your site’s functionality, 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 probably powered by WordPress too.
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 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 to a smaller budget if required?
Is Your Web Site Built With WordPress?
Do you need to know if your website is powered by WordPress? Maybe you’ve come here because you’ve read or heard wonderful things about all of the great advantages of using WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site was built using the WordPress software, or some other website application.
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 built with WordPress:
View 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 telltale footprints that the site was built using WordPress …
(Viewing the web page source code in the Firefox browser)
Suppose that you are surfing the web and you come across a site that you like, and you’re wondering if the site runs on 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 with your eyes …
Or using the browser’s “Find” function …
(Use Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site was built using WordPress or not.
Note: If you cannot find “wp-content” in the source code, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the website is not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to find out if a site was built using the WordPress software, as we will soon see.
As the point of this post is to help non “techies”, however, below you will find a number of easier methods you can use to check if your site is built with WordPress other than looking at the source code.
Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the obvious thing to do, some website developers, for whatever reason, will build 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 developer or whoever built your web site if your website has been built with WordPress.
That was simple, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t get in touch with the person who built your site, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while surfing online and you really would like to know if it was built with WordPress?
Check Below The Footer
If the site uses a WordPress theme where the site them template has not been edited, you can often see a “Powered by WordPress” message displayed below the footer area …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress)
If these simple methods haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …
Sites That Can Tell You If A Website Runs On WordPress
Here are a couple of sites that will tell you if your website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WordPress?
(Is It WP – WP Website Checker)
Is It WordPress? is a free tool that can check very quickly if a site runs on WordPress or not.
Using this site is really quite easy. Just enter the URL of the website into the URL field and click the button.
The tool will then go through the page code on the URL 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 web site is not a WP site, you will see 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 – Browser Extension (Firefox / Chrome)
(Wappalyzer.com)
If you use a browser like Firefox or Chrome and would like to be able to tell if the sites that you are visiting are WP sites, then Wappalyzer is a useful extension to add to 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.”
It’s also very easy to install.
Once you have installed the Wappalyzer extension on your browser, icons will appear in your web browser menu, in the URL field allowing you to see which software is being used by all the sites you visit …
If the WordPress icon shows up on the browser menu (as shown in the screen shot above), then the site uses WordPress.
(This is a WordPress site!)
To learn more and download Wappalyzer 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, visit the site below:
We hope you have found this the information in this tutorial useful.
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