When the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. One could easily tell the difference between the two.
Then WordPress came along and everything changed. Now, it’s getting harder 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 website design and also being able to tell what’s “under the hood”.
(Can You Tell Which Application A Website Has Been Built With?)
For many website owners, understanding the difference between a CMS 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 matter to most website owners, 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 website, but at a much cheaper price than the cost of getting site ”A” built.
If you decided to go with web site “B”, then you need to learn more about WordPress, why WordPress can give you an attractive, professional-looking and fully functional website that could turn out to be far less expensive to build than websites which are built with other web editing applications … and how to tell these apart!
WordPress is the world’s most popular online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a powerful content management system that is ideally suited for local businesses.
Whether your reason for having a digital presence is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a beginner with no programming skills to use and manage, and offers an array of helpful extensions 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 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, your website is probably powered by WordPress too.
And if you don’t have a website yet, or are considering 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 something similarly built to a smaller budget if required?
Is My Website WordPress?
Do you need to know if your website was built using WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to our site because you’ve read or heard wonderful things about all of the great benefits and advantages of using WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on WordPress, or some other CMS 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 some simple methods you can use to quickly tell if a site has been built using WordPress:
Look At The 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 tell-tale footprints that the site was built using WordPress …
(View the web page source code in the Firefox browser)
Suppose that you are browsing online and you visit a website that you like, and you would like to know 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 “wp-content” either manually …
Or use your browser’s “Find” function …
(Use Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site is powered by WordPress or not.
Note: If you cannot locate “wp-content” in the page source code, it doesn’t mean that it’s not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if the site runs on the WordPress software, as we will soon be discussing.
As the point of this post is to try and help non “techies”, however, we have listed below a number of easier methods you can use to check if your site is built using WordPress other than scanning the source code.
Simply Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the most obvious thing to do, many web development companies, for whatever reason, may build their clients a website and not tell them it’s been built with WordPress.
If you employed the services of a website developer or got somebody else to build your website, just ask your developer or whoever built your web site if the web site was built using WordPress.
That was simple, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach your website developer, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while surfing the net late at night and you would like to know if it was built using WordPress?
Check Below Footer
If the site uses a WordPress theme where the website them template has not been customized, you will typically see a “Proudly powered by WordPress” message shown in the footer section …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress)
If these simple methods aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of telling whether a website runs on WordPress or not …
Sites That Tell You If A Website Runs On WordPress
Here are a some sites that can tell you if the website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
IsItWP.com
(Is It WordPress? – WP Checker)
Is It WP is a free online tool that can tell you if a site runs on WordPress or not.
Using this site is very simple. Just add the address of the site into the URL field and click the button next to it.
The tool will then go 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 web site is not powered by WordPress, you will see 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 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 – Add-On For Firefox / Chrome Web Browser)
If you use either the Firefox or Chrome browser and want to be able to know if the sites that you are visiting are powered by WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a great extension 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 web browser extension to install.
Once you have installed Wappalyzer on your web browser, icons will show up in your browser, in the URL field allowing you to see which technologies are installed on all the sites you are visiting …
If you see the WordPress icon on the browser menu (as shown in the screen shot above), then the site uses WordPress.
(It’s a WordPress site!)
Visit the 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, 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 that you have found the above tutorial useful.
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