Once upon a time and not so long ago, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. One could easily tell the difference between the two.
Then the WordPress CMS came along and revolutionized web publishing. Now, it’s becoming more and more difficult to tell blogs and websites apart. 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 hood”.
(It’s Getting Harder To Tell Websites Built With Web Development Tools Vs ‘Blogging’ Software!)
For 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, in terms of the things that the majority of website owners are concerned with, such as web development costs, ease of use, ability to maintain the site up-to-date, managing web content, etc.
Think about this …
Which of the following options 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 site, but at a cost that turns out to be significantly less than the cost of getting option ”A”.
If you decided to go with website “B”, then you need to learn more about WordPress, why WordPress can give you an eye-catching website that could end up costing you far less to build than websites which use a website building application … and how to tell the two apart!
WordPress is the world’s preferred online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a powerful and easy-to-use CMS application suitable for businesses on a budget.
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 manage, and offers an array of helpful add-ons that make your web site highly effective when it comes to getting your content published and indexed by search engines, 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 is also driven by WordPress.
And if you don’t have a website yet, or are thinking of getting one 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 for your business quite inexpensively?
Was My Website Built Using WordPress? Tell-Tale Signs & WordPress-Checking Tools
Do you need to know if a website uses WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to this page because you’ve read about all of the great advantages of using WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on the WordPress software, 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 a number of ways to tell if sites are running on WordPress:
Look At The Page Source Code
If you know how to check 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 telltale footprints …
(Viewing the page source code in the Firefox browser)
Suppose that you are surfing the web and you visit 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 page loads on your screen, search for the words “wp-content” either by scanning the code visually …
Or use the browser’s “Find” function …
(Use the Firefox browser ‘Find’ function)
This will quickly tell you if the site is powered by WordPress or not.
Note: If you do not locate the words “wp-content” in the source code, it does not necessarily mean that the website is not 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 help non-technical users, however, below you will find a number of easier methods you can use to check if your website is powered by WordPress other than searching the source code.
Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the logical thing to do, many web development agencies, 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 can’t tell what CMS application is driving it, just ask your developer or whoever built your web site if the website has been built using WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach the person who built your site, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while surfing the net late at night and you really would like to know if it was built with WordPress?
Check Below The Footer
If the site uses a WP theme where the website templates have not been modified, you can typically see a “Proudly powered by WordPress” message shown in the footer area …
(Powered by WordPress – footer area)
If the methods above haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of telling whether a site was built with WordPress or not …
Online Tools That Tell You If A Website Has Been Built With WordPress
Here are a some online applications that will tell you if a particular website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP – WP Site Checking Tool
(Is It WP – WordPress Site Checking Tool)
Is It WP is a free tool that can tell you very quickly if a site uses WordPress or not.
Using this tool is super easy. Just type the URL of the website into the search field and click the button.
It will go and search through the URL pages 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 WordPress site, you will get a message similar to 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 – Extension For Firefox & Chrome Web Browser
(Wappalyzer – Browser Extension (Firefox / Chrome))
If you use either the Firefox or Chrome browser and would like to be able to see if the sites that you are visiting use WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a great add-on to install on your web browser.
Wappalyzer identifies 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 easy to install.
After installing Wappalyzer, icons will display in your browser menu identifying which software is being used by the sites you visit …
If the WordPress icon displays on the browser menu (as the above screen shot shows), then the site uses WordPress.
(It’s a WordPress site!)
To visit the Wappalyzer browser add-on site, 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, go here:
I hope that you have found this the information in this tutorial useful.
***
"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group