Does Your Website Run On WordPress? How To Tell

Does your website run on WordPress? Here are some tell-tale signs that a website was built with WordPress …

WordPress For BeginnersWhen the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. One could easily tell the difference.

Then WordPress came along and everything changed. Now, it’s becoming almost impossible 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’s under the surface.

The Easy Way To Tell If Your Website Was Built Using WP Software

(It’s Getting Harder To Tell Websites Built With Web Development Tools Vs ‘Blogging’ Software!)

For many 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 matter to most website owners, such as web development costs, ease of use, ability to keep the website 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 much cheaper cost than the cost of getting option ”A” built.

If you picked site “B”, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can provide you with a beautiful website that could turn out to be much less expensive to build than websites built using traditional web editor tools … and how to tell the two types apart!

WordPress is the world’s most used online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a budget-friendly CMS suitable for all businesses and non-technical users.

Whether your reason for having a digital presence is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a novice with no web design skills to use and manage, yet it offers a range of helpful features that make your web presence extremely effective when it comes to getting your content published and indexed by search engines, 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 could probably be powered by WordPress too.

And if you don’t have a website yet, or are thinking of getting one 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 for your business quite inexpensively?

Is My Site WordPress?

Do you need to know if your website uses WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to this page because you’ve heard or read about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site was built using the WordPress software, or some other content management system.

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 is running on WordPress:

Search Your Page’s Source Code For The TellTale WordPress Footprint

If you know how to search 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 …

Viewing the web page source code using the Firefox web browser

(View your page source code in Firefox)

Suppose that you are browsing online and you visit a website that you like, and you would like to know if the site uses WordPress …

View The Page Source Code In Firefox

First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.

After the source code of the site loads on your screen, search for “wp-content” either manually …

Is My Website Built Using WordPress? How To Tell

Or use your browser’s “Find” function …

Using Firefox's 'Find' function

(Use the Firefox browser ‘Find’ function)

This will tell you if the site is powered by WordPress or not.

Note: If you do not see the words “wp-content” in the page source code, it does not mean that it’s not a WordPress site.

Viewing Page Source Code In Firefox

There are other ways to find out if the site was built using the WordPress software, as we will soon see.

As the point 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 site is built using WordPress other than viewing the source code.

Just Ask Your Website Developer

While this may seem like the most obvious thing to do, a number of website developers, for whatever reason, will build their clients a website and not tell them it’s WordPress.

If you have an existing website and you can’t tell what CMS application is driving it, just ask your developer or whoever built your web site if your website runs on 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 and you need to know if the site was built using WordPress?

Powered By WordPress

If the site uses a WP theme and the website them template has not been customized, you can often find a “Powered by WordPress” notice shown at the bottom of the site …

Powered by WordPress

(Proudly Powered by WordPress)

If these simple methods haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …

Sites That Can Tell You If A Website Runs On WordPress

Here are a couple of tools that can tell you if your website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …

Is It WordPress? – WP Checking Tool

Is It WP

(Is It WP)

Is It WP is a free tool that can check if a website runs on WordPress or not.

Using this tool is super easy. Just add the URL of the website into the search field and click the button next to it.

It will then go and search through the URL files and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, which version of WordPress the site is currently using …

Is It WP

If the site does not run on WordPress, you will see a message like the one below …

Is It WP

To visit this site, go here:

Advanced WP Theme Checker by Satori

WordPress Theme Detector

(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

(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

(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

(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

(This website is not WordPress)

You can try the Detector yourself by visiting this link:

WordPress Theme Detector

Wappalyzer

Wappalyzer - Web Browser Extension (Firefox / Chrome)

(Wappalyzer)

If you use a web browser such as Firefox or Google Chrome and would like to be able to tell if the sites that you are visiting use WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a great extension for your browser.

Wappalyzer tells you what software is installed on the sites you are visiting.

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 an easy extension to install.

Wappalyzer - Web Browser Extension (Firefox / Chrome)

After installing the Wappalyzer extension on your web browser, icons will display in your web browser menu identifying which software is installed on the sites you are visiting …

Wappalyzer.com

If the WordPress icon displays on your browser menu (as the above screen shot shows), then the site uses WordPress.

A WordPress site!

(This is a WordPress site!)

Visit the Wappalyzer extension site here:

SpyBar

SpyBar - Browser Addon For WordPress

(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 – 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 – 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

(Search WordPress sites by categories and location)

To download or learn more about Plugin Sniper, go here:

I hope you have found this 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