Once upon a time and not so long ago, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. One could easily tell the difference.
Then the WordPress CMS came along and revolutionized web publishing. Now, it’s becoming harder to tell if the site is being powered by a “blogging” CMS software application like WordPress, or if it’s been built using a web building software tooltool. 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 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 areas that the majority of website owners care most about, such as 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 quite expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking website, but at a much cheaper cost than the cost of getting option ”A” above built.
If you selected web site “B”, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can be used to create an eye-catching website that will probably turn out to be far less expensive to build than websites which use a website development application … and how to tell these apart!
WordPress is the world’s most popular online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a powerful content management system suitable for most types of business applications.
Whether your reason for having a website is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a newbie with no programming skills to use, and offers an array of helpful features that make your website extremely effective when it comes to getting your content published, promoting visitor engagement, 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, your site could probably be powered by WordPress too.
And if you don’t have a website yet, or are thinking of getting a website built, then wouldn’t it be great 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 to a smaller budget if required?
Is My Website Built With WordPress? Tell-Tale Signs & WordPress-Checking Tools
Do you need to know if a website is powered by WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to our site because you’ve read about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on WordPress, 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 built using WordPress:
View The Page Source Code
If you know how to search 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 with WordPress …
(Viewing your page source code using the Firefox browser)
Suppose that you are browsing online and you visit a website that you like, and you would like to know 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, you can search for words like “wp-content” either manually …
Or use your browser’s “Find” function …
(Using the Firefox browser ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site is powered by WordPress or not.
Note: If you cannot see “wp-content” within the source code, it does not necessarily mean that it’s not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if the site was built using the WordPress software, as we will soon be discussing.
As the point of this article is to try and help non “techies”, however, we have listed below a number of easy methods you can use to check if your site is built with WordPress other than looking through the source code.
Ask Your Web Developer
While this may seem like the logical thing to do, a number of website development companies, for whatever reason, may 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 was used to build it, just ask your webmaster or whoever built your website if it has been built using WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t get in touch with your webmaster, or what if you’ve come across a website that you really like while browsing the net and would like to know if it was built with WordPress?
Check Below The Footer
If the site uses a WordPress theme where the theme templates have not been modified, you will often see a “Powered by WordPress” notice displayed in the footer area …
(Powered by WordPress)
If these simple methods aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …
Tools That Tell You If A Website Uses WordPress
Here are a couple of tools that will tell you if a particular website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WordPress?
(Is It WP – WordPress Website Checker)
Is It WP is a free online tool that can tell you very quickly if a website runs on WordPress or not.
Using this site is very simple. Just add the URL of the website into the URL field and click the button next to it.
The tool will 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 the site is currently using …
If the web site is not a WP-powered web site or blog, you will get a message like 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 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
(Wappalyzer.com)
If you use either the Firefox or Chrome web browser and would like to be able to tell if the sites that you are visiting are WordPress-driven, then Wappalyzer is a useful extension to add to your web browser.
Wappalyzer tells you what software is installed on 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 and very easy to use.
Once you have installed the Wappalyzer extension on your web browser, icons will appear in your browser, in the URL field allowing you to see which software is installed on the sites you visit …
If the WordPress icon shows up on the browser menu (as the above screenshot shows), then the site uses WordPress.
(It’s 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 you have found the above tutorial useful.
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