Once upon a time and not so long ago, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell the two apart.
Then the WordPress CMS came along and everything changed. Now, it’s getting increasingly harder to tell blogs and websites apart. 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 application 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 things that many website owners are mostly concerned with, like web development costs, ease of use, ability to keep 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 is actually expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking website, but at a much cheaper price than the cost of getting option ”A” above built.
If you chose option ”B” above, then you need to learn more about the benefits of using WordPress, why WordPress can be used to create an eye-catching website that will probably end up costing you far less to build than websites which are built using a web building application … and how to tell these apart!
WordPress is the world’s leading online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a powerful and easy-to-use CMS application that is ideally suited 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 beginner with no knowledge of HTML to use, and offers many helpful extensions 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 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 also driven by WordPress.
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 for a much smaller cost?
How To Check If A Web Site Is A WordPress Website
Do you need to know if your website is powered by WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to our site because you’ve heard or read about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site was built using WordPress, 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 methods you can use to quickly tell if a web site is running on WordPress:
Look At Your Page Source Code
If you know how to bring up 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 an obvious tell-tale footprint that the site was built with WordPress …
(Viewing the page source code in the Firefox web browser)
Suppose that you are surfing the web and you come across a website 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 page’s source code, you can search for “wp-content” either by scanning the code visually …
Or use your browser’s “Find” function …
(Using the Firefox browser ‘Find’ function)
This will quickly tell you if the site was built using WordPress or not.
Note: If you cannot find “wp-content” within the source code, it doesn’t mean that it’s not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if the site runs on WordPress, as we will soon discuss.
As the focus of this article is to try and help non-technical users, however, below you will find a number of easy ways to check if your website is built with WordPress other than looking through the source code.
Ask Your Website Developer
While this may seem like the obvious thing to do, many website developers, for whatever reason, may build clients a website and not tell them it’s WordPress.
If you have an existing website and you’re not sure what application is driving it, just ask your web developer or whoever built your website if it was built using WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach your webmaster, or what if you’ve come across a website that you really like while surfing the net late at night and would like to know if it was built with WordPress?
Check Below The Footer
If the site uses a WP theme where the templates have not been modified, you can typically see a “Powered by WordPress” notice showing below the footer area …
(Powered by WordPress)
If the methods above aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …
Tools That Tell You If A Website Runs On WordPress
Here are a couple of online applications that will tell you if the website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WordPress?
(IsItWP.com – WP Site Checker)
IsItWP.com is a free tool that lets you easily check if a website was built using WordPress or not.
Using this site is really simple. Just paste the URL of the site into the URL field and click the button next to it.
It will go and search through the site code and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, which version of WordPress the site is currently using …
If the site is not powered by WordPress, you will get a message like the one 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 – Add-On For Firefox / Chrome Web Browser
(Wappalyzer.com)
If you use a browser such as Firefox or Google Chrome and want to be able to see if the sites that you are visiting are powered by WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a very useful extension for your browser.
Wappalyzer helps you identify 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 and very easy to use.
After installing Wappalyzer on your browser, icons will appear in your browser menu, in the URL field identifying which technologies are installed on the sites you visit …
If the WordPress icon shows up on your browser menu (as the above screenshot shows), then the site uses WordPress.
(This website is powered by WordPress!)
Visit the Wappalyzer browser add-on site 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, go here:
I hope you have found the above the information in this tutorial useful.
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"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