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 changed all this. Now, it’s becoming more and more difficult to tell if the website is being powered by a “blogging” CMS software application like the WordPress publishing platform, or if it’s been created using a traditional website development tool. 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.
(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 application like WordPress and other website-building tools is huge, not so much in terms of the technical differences, but more importantly, regarding the things that the majority of website owners care most about, such as web development costs, ease of use, ability to maintain the website 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 for a tiny fraction of the cost of getting site ”A” built.
If you selected option ”B” above, then you need to know more about the benefits of using WordPress, why WordPress can give you an eye-catching website that could cost far less to build than websites built using other web editor tools … and how to tell the two apart!
WordPress is the world’s most used online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a flexible and powerful CMS platform that is ideally suited for small, medium and even large businesses.
Whether your reason for having an online presence is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a newbie with no programming skills to use, yet it 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 capabilities, 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 considering getting one 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 something similarly built for a much smaller cost?
The Easy Way To Tell If Your Blog Runs On WordPress Software
Do you need to know if a website is powered by WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to this page because you’ve heard about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on the WordPress software, 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 methods you can use to quickly tell if sites are powered 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 a telltale footprint that the site was built with WordPress …
(View the web page source code in the Firefox browser)
Suppose that you are browsing online and you come across a site that you like, and you wonder if the site is built with 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, search for the words “wp-content” either by scanning the code visually …
Or use your browser’s “Find” function …
(Use Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will quickly tell you if the site runs on WordPress or not.
Note: If you are unable to find “wp-content” in the source code, it does not necessarily mean that the site you’re looking at is 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 post is to try and help non-technical users, however, we have listed below a number of easier ways to check if your site is powered by WordPress other than looking through the source code.
Simply Ask Your Website Developer
While this may seem like the obvious thing to do, some website developers, for whatever reason, may 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 application is driving it, just ask your webmaster or whoever built your web site if the website runs on WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach your webmaster, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while browsing the net late at night and need to know if the site was built using WordPress?
Check Below Footer
If the site uses a WordPress theme and the website template has not been modified, you can often find a “Powered by WordPress” message displayed at the bottom of the site …
(Powered by WordPress)
If the methods above haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of telling whether a site runs on WordPress or not …
Sites That Tell You If A Website Runs On WordPress
Here are a some online applications that can tell you if your website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP – WordPress Website Checking Tool
(IsItWP.com)
Is It WP? is a free tool that tells you if a site was built with 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.
The tool will then go and search 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 it is currently using …
If the web site has not been built using WordPress, you will get a message similar to the one shown in the screenshot 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 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)
If you browse the net using either the Firefox or Google Chrome browsers and want to be able to know if the sites that you are visiting use WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a very 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 a very easy to install and easy to use browser add-on.
After installing Wappalyzer on your web browser, icons will display in your web browser menu, next to the site URL identifying which technologies are installed on all the sites you are visiting …
If you see the WordPress icon displayed on the browser menu (as shown in the screen shot above), then the site has been built with WordPress.
(This is a WordPress site!)
To visit the 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, 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, visit the site below:
I hope you have found the above the information in this tutorial useful.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now