It used to be that blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell the difference.
Then WordPress came along and everything changed. Now, it’s getting more and more difficult to tell the difference between what applications are being used to build the two. 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 type of web application is actually powering the site.
(Can You Tell Which Application Is Powering Your Website?)
For website owners, understanding the difference between a Content Management System application 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 are deeply concerned with, like web development costs, ease of use, ability to maintain the website 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 site, but for a fraction of the cost of getting option ”A” above built.
If you went with option ”B” above, then you need to learn more about the benefits of using WordPress, why WordPress can give you a beautiful website that will typically turn out to be far less expensive to build than websites which are built using a web building tool … and how to tell these two types apart!
WordPress is the world’s most popular online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a flexible and powerful CMS application suitable for all businesses and non-technical users.
Whether your reason for having a website or blog is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a newbie with no web design skills to use, and offers an array of helpful tools that make your website more 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 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 thinking of 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 a similar site built for your business to a smaller budget if required?
How To Check If Your Site Was Built Using WordPress
Do you need to know if a website is powered by WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to this page because you’ve read about all of the great benefits and advantages of using WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on 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 a number of ways to tell if sites are built with WordPress:
Look At The Source Code
If you know how to view 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 a tell-tale footprint that the site was built with WordPress …
(How to view your web page source code in Firefox)
Let’s say that you are browsing online 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.
Once the source code of the site loads on your screen, you can search for the words “wp-content” either by visually scanning the code …
Or use the browser’s “Find” function …
(Using the Firefox browser ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site was built with WordPress or not.
Note: If you do not see the words “wp-content” in the page source code, it doesn’t mean that it’s not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to find out if the site runs on WordPress, as we will soon see.
As the point of this article is to try and help non “techies”, however, below you will find a number of easy ways to check if your web site is powered by WordPress other than looking at the source code.
Simply Ask Your Web Developer
While this may seem like the obvious thing to do, many website developers, for whatever reason, will build clients a website and not tell them it’s been built with WordPress.
If you have an existing website and you can’t tell what CMS application is driving it, just ask your webmaster or whoever built your website if your website was 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 you really want to know if it was built using WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WordPress theme and the them template has not been edited, you will typically find a “Powered by WordPress” notice shown at the bottom of the site …
(Powered by WordPress)
If these simple methods aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …
Online Tools That Tell You If A Website Is Built With WordPress
Here are a couple of online applications that can tell you if a website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WordPress? – WP Checker
(Is It WP – WP Site Checking Tool)
Is It WP? is a free online tool that can tell you if a site was built using WordPress or not.
Using this site is really quite easy. Just type the URL of the website into the search field and click the button next to it.
The tool will then go through the URL files and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, which version of WordPress it is currently using …
If the web site is not a WP-powered website, 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 – Add-On For Firefox / Chrome Browser
(Wappalyzer – Web Browser Extension (Firefox / Chrome))
If you browse the net using either Firefox or Google Chrome and want to be able to tell if the sites that you are visiting are WordPress sites, then Wappalyzer is a very useful add-on for your web browser.
Wappalyzer tells you what type of 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 an easy to install and very easy to use web browser extension.
Once you have installed the Wappalyzer extension on your web browser, icons will show up in your web browser menu, in the URL field identifying which software is installed on all the sites you visit …
If the WordPress icon displays on the browser menu (as shown in the screen shot above), then the site has been built with WordPress.
(This website has been built with WordPress!)
Visit the Wappalyzer web browser add-on 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, go here:
I hope that you have found the above tutorial useful.
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