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 the WordPress CMS came along and changed everything. 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 type of web application is actually powering the site.
(It’s Getting Harder To Tell Websites Built With Web Development Tools Vs ‘Blogging’ Software!)
For website owners, understanding the difference between a CMS application like WordPress and other website-building software is huge, not so much in terms of the technical differences, but more importantly, regarding the areas that many website owners are mostly concerned with, like web development costs, ease of use, ability to maintain the site up-to-date, managing web content, etc.
Think about this …
Which of the options below would you choose?
A) An eye-catching, professional-looking website that is 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 site ”A” built.
If you decided to go with website “B”, then you need to learn more about WordPress, why WordPress can give you an attractive, professional-looking and fully functional website that will typically end up costing you far less to build than websites which use traditional website development tools … and how to tell these two types apart!
WordPress is the world’s preferred online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a powerful and easy-to-use content management application suitable for all businesses and non-technical users.
Whether your reason for having a web site is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a newbie with no knowledge of web coding to use, yet it offers an array of helpful extensions that make your web site extremely 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, 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, yours is also a WordPress site.
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 a similar site built for very little cost?
Does My Website Run On WordPress?
Do you need to know if your website was built using WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to our site because you’ve read about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site was built using 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 a number of ways to tell if sites are powered WordPress:
Look At The Page Source Code
If you know how to view 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 tell-tale footprints …
(View your page source code using the Firefox browser)
Suppose that you are browsing online and you visit 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 source code, search for the words “wp-content” either by scanning the code with your eyes …
Or using the browser’s “Find” function …
(Use the Firefox browser ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site was built with WordPress or not.
Note: If you cannot see “wp-content” in the source code, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are not looking at a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if a site was built using WordPress, as we will soon be discussing.
As the focus of this article is to help non “techies”, however, below you will find a number of easy ways to check if your website is built with WordPress other than searching the source code.
Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the logical thing to do, many website developers, for whatever reason, will build their clients a website and not tell them it’s been built with WordPress.
If you paid a website developer or got somebody else to build your website, just ask your developer or whoever built your website if the website was built with WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t get in touch with your webmaster, or what if you’ve come across a website that you really like while browsing the net late at night and you really want to know if it was built with WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WP theme and the templates have not been modified, you can often see a “Proudly powered by WordPress” message displayed below the footer section of the site …
(Powered by WordPress)
If these simple methods aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …
Online Tools That Can Tell You If A Website Is Built With WordPress
Here are a couple of sites that will tell you if your website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP
(Is It WordPress? – WP Site Checker)
Is It WordPress? is a free tool that tells you if a website was built with WordPress or not.
Using this site is very simple. Just type in or paste in the address of the site into the URL field and click the button.
The tool will search through the URL files and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, it will even tell you the version of WordPress the site is currently using …
If the site does not run on WordPress, you will see a message like the one shown in the screen shot 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 – Web Browser Add-On (Firefox / Chrome))
If you browse the net using either Firefox or Google Chrome and want to be able to instantly tell if the sites that you are visiting use WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a very useful add-on to add to your browser.
Wappalyzer tells you what type of 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.”
It’s also a very easy to install and very easy to use web browser add-on.
After installing Wappalyzer on your web browser, icons will show up in your browser menu identifying which technologies are installed on all 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 site has been built with WordPress!)
Go here to visit the site:
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 information 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