When the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell the two apart.
Then the WordPress CMS came along and changed everything. Now, it’s getting 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 hood”.
(Can You Tell Which Application Your Website Is Powered By?)
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, regarding the things that matter to most website owners, like web development costs, ease of use, ability to maintain 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 actually expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking website, but at a much cheaper price than the cost of getting option ”A” above built.
If you decided to go with option ”B” above, then you need to learn more about WordPress, why WordPress can give you a professional-looking website that could end up costing you far less to build than websites which are built using other web editing applications … and how to tell the two types apart!
WordPress is the world’s leading online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a powerful and easy-to-use content management system suitable for small, medium and even large businesses.
Whether your reason for having an online presence is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a novice with no programming skills to use, and offers a range of helpful extensions that make your web presence more 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, 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 site is also driven by the WordPress CMS.
And if you don’t have a website yet, or are considering getting a website built, then wouldn’t it be great 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 to a smaller budget if required?
Does My Site Run On WordPress?
Do you need to know if a 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 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 methods you can use to quickly tell if sites are running on WordPress:
Look At Your 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 a tell-tale footprint that the site was built with WordPress …
(View your web page source code in the Firefox browser)
Let’s say that you are surfing the web and you visit a web site 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 words like “wp-content” either by visually scanning the code …
Or use 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 locate the words “wp-content” in the source code, it does not necessarily mean that you are not looking at a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if the site runs on WordPress, as we will soon be discussing.
As the point of this post is to help non-technical users, however, below you will find a number of easier ways to check if your website is powered by WordPress other than looking at the source code.
Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the most obvious thing to do, a number of website development agencies, for whatever reason, will build their clients a website and not tell them it’s WordPress.
If you have an existing web site and you’re not sure what application was used to build it, just ask your webmaster or whoever built your website if your web site has been built with WordPress.
That was easy, 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 would like to know if it was built using WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WordPress theme where the them template has not been edited, you will often find a “Proudly powered by WordPress” notice showing at the bottom of the site …
(Powered by WordPress)
If the methods above aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …
Sites That Tell You If A Website Runs On WordPress
Here are a couple of online applications that can tell you if the website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
IsItWP.com – WP Checker
(Is It WordPress?)
Is It WordPress? is a free tool that can check if a website uses WordPress or not.
Using this tool is super easy. Just type in or paste in the address of the website into the URL field and click the button.
It will then search through the site code and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, it will even tell you the version of WordPress it is currently using …
If the site is not a WP web site or blog, you will get a message similar to the one 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 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 the Firefox or Chrome browsers and would like to be able to see if the sites that you are visiting are WordPress-driven, then Wappalyzer is a very useful add-on to install on your browser.
Wappalyzer tells you what software is installed on 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 very easy to install.
Once you have installed the Wappalyzer add-on on your browser, icons will display in your web browser menu allowing you to see which software is being used by all the sites you visit …
If the WordPress icon displays on your browser menu (as shown in the screen shot above), then the site uses WordPress.
(This site is powered by WordPress!)
Go here to visit the Wappalyzer extension 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:
We hope you have found this the information in this tutorial useful.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum