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 getting harder 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.
(Can You Tell Which Application Is Powering Your Website?)
For 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, in terms of the things that many website owners are 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 turns out to be fairly 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” above.
If you chose web site “B”, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can be used to create a stunning website that could turn out to be far less expensive to build than websites which use a web development tool … and how to tell the two types apart!
WordPress is the world’s most popular online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a budget-friendly content management application suitable for all businesses and non-technical users.
Whether your reason for having a website 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 many helpful features that make your web site extremely effective in terms of getting your content published and indexed by search engines, promoting visitor interaction, generating business leads and sales, enhancing your site’s functionality, 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 thinking of getting a website 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 something similarly built to a smaller budget if required?
Was My Website Built With WordPress? How To Tell
Do you need to know if your website was built using WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to our site because you’ve heard about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site was built using the WordPress software, 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 some simple methods you can use to quickly tell if sites are built using WordPress:
Search Your Source Code For Obvious TellTale WordPress Footprints
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 a telltale footprint that the site was built using WordPress …
(View your web page source code in Firefox)
Let’s say that you are browsing online and you visit a site 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.
After the source code of the page loads on your screen, search for words like “wp-content” either manually …
Or use the browser’s “Find” function …
(Use the Firefox browser ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site was built using WordPress or not.
Note: If you do not locate “wp-content” in the source code, it doesn’t mean that the site you’re looking at is not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to find out if a site runs on the WordPress software, as we will soon discuss.
As the point of this article is to help non “techies”, however, we have listed below a number of easy methods you can use to check if your site is powered by WordPress other than searching through the source code.
Just Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the most obvious thing to do, a number of website development agencies, for whatever reason, may build their clients a website and not tell them it’s WordPress.
If you used the services of a website developer or got somebody else to build you a website, just ask your webmaster or whoever built your site if your website runs on WordPress.
That was easy, 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 browsing the net and you want to know if it was built using WordPress?
Check Below Footer
If the site uses a WP theme and the site theme templates have not been edited, you can often see a “Proudly powered by WordPress” message showing in the footer section of the site …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress)
If these simple methods haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of telling whether a site uses WordPress or not …
Sites That Can Tell You If A Website Is Built With WordPress
Here are a some tools that can tell you if your website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP
(IsItWP.com – WP Website Checker)
Is It WordPress? is a free online tool that can check if a website uses WordPress or not.
Using this tool is very easy. Just type the address of the site into the search field and click the button next to it.
The tool will then go and search through the URL 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 does not run on WordPress, you will get a message like the one shown in the screenshot below …
To visit this site, 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 – Extension For Firefox & Chrome Browser
(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 have been built using WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a useful extension to add to your browser.
Wappalyzer tells you what type of software is installed in 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.”
Wappalyzer is also a very easy to install and very easy to use browser extension.
Once you have installed Wappalyzer, icons will display in your web browser menu, in the URL field identifying which technologies are being used by all the sites you visit …
If you see the WordPress icon on the browser menu (as shown in the screenshot above), then the site uses WordPress.
(This is 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, go here:
I hope you have found this the information in this tutorial useful.
***
"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