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 WordPress came along and changed everything. Now, it’s getting harder to tell if the website was built using a “blogging” content management system (CMS) like the WordPress platform, or if it’s been created using some other web editing application. 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’s under the surface.
(Can You Tell Which Application A Website Has Been Built With?)
For many 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, regarding the things that matter to most website owners, like web development costs, ease of use, ability to keep the site up-to-date, managing content, etc.
Think about this …
Which of these options would you choose?
A) An eye-catching, professional-looking website that is expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking website, but at a cost that turns out to be significantly less than the cost of getting site ”A” above built.
If you picked site ”B” above, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can give you an expensive-looking website that will normally turn out to be much less expensive to build than websites which are built using a website building application … and how to tell the two types apart!
WordPress is the world’s preferred online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a flexible and powerful content management system that is ideally suited for ”non-techy” website owners.
Whether your reason for having a digital presence is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a newbie with no knowledge of web coding to use and manage, and offers a range of helpful tools that make your website highly effective in terms of getting your content published and indexed by search engines, promoting visitor engagement, generating business leads and sales, 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 a similar site built to a smaller budget if required?
The Easy Way To Tell If Your Blog Was Built Using WP Software
Do you need to know if a website uses WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to our site because you’ve heard or read about all of the great advantages of using WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on 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 ways to tell if a site has been built with WordPress:
View Your 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 obvious telltale footprints that the site was built using WordPress …
(How to view web page source code using the Firefox browser)
Let’s say that you are surfing the web and you visit a website that you like, and you wonder if the site runs on WordPress …
First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.
In the source code, you can search for the words “wp-content” either by scanning the code with your eyes …
Or using the browser’s “Find” function …
(Use Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site was built using WordPress or not.
Note: If you cannot locate “wp-content” in the source code, it does not mean that it’s not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to find out if the site was built using WordPress, as we will soon see.
As the point of this post is to try and help non-technical users, however, we have listed below a number of easy ways to check if your website is built using WordPress other than looking at the source code.
Simply Ask Your Web Developer
While this may seem like the most obvious thing to do, many web developers, for whatever reason, will build their clients a website and not tell them it’s WordPress.
If you used a website developer or got somebody else to build your website, just ask your web developer or whoever built your website if your website has been built with WordPress.
That was simple, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t get in touch with your website developer, or what if you’ve come across a website that you really like while surfing the net late at night and you really want to know if the site was built with WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WordPress theme where the template has not been modified, you can typically find a “Proudly powered by WordPress” notice shown at the bottom of the site …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress)
If the methods above haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …
Online Tools That Tell You If A Website Runs On WordPress
Here are a couple of sites that can tell you if the website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP
(Is It WP – WordPress Site Checker)
Is It WP? is a free online tool that can tell you if a website was built with WordPress or not.
Using this site is super easy. Just paste the address of the website into the URL field and click the button.
The tool will then search through the URL pages 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 has not been built using 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.com
(Wappalyzer)
If you browse the net using either Firefox or Google Chrome and want to be able to see if the sites that you are visiting are WP sites, then Wappalyzer is a great add-on to add to your browser.
Wappalyzer tells you what software is installed in 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.”
Wappalyzer is also an easy to install and easy to use web browser add-on.
Once you have installed Wappalyzer, icons will appear in your browser menu allowing you to see which software is being used by all the sites you are visiting …
If you see the WordPress icon displayed on the browser menu (as the above screenshot shows), then the site has been built with WordPress.
(It’s a WordPress site!)
To learn more, 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:
We hope that you have found the above the information in this tutorial useful.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)