Once upon a time and not so long ago, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell the difference.
Then WordPress came along and revolutionized web publishing. Now, it’s getting harder to tell if a site is being powered by a “blogging” content management system (CMS) like WordPress, or if it’s been created using a traditional web editing application. Not so much in terms of what the sites are being used for, but in terms of web design and also being able to tell what’s “under the hood”.
(It’s Getting Harder To Tell Websites Built With Web Development Tools Vs ‘Blogging’ Software!)
For website owners, understanding the difference between a Content Management System tool like WordPress and other website-building software is huge, not so much in terms of the technical differences, but more importantly, in terms of the things that the majority of website owners are mostly concerned with, 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 following options 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 cost that is significantly less than the cost of getting site ”A”.
If you chose site ”B” above, then you need to know more about the benefits of using WordPress, why WordPress can be used to create an eye-catching website that will typically turn out to be much less expensive to build than websites built using other website editing applications … and how to tell these two types apart!
WordPress is the world’s most popular online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a flexible and powerful CMS platform suitable for most business needs.
Whether your reason for having a digital presence is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a beginner with no web design skills to use, and offers a range of helpful functions that make your web site extremely effective in terms of getting your content published and indexed by search engines, promoting visitor engagement, generating business leads and sales, 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 site is also driven by the WP CMS.
And if you don’t have a website yet, or are thinking of getting a website built, then wouldn’t it be great 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?
Is My Web Site WordPress?
Do you need to know if a website was built using WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to this page because you’ve read wonderful things about all of the great advantages of using WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on WordPress, or some other CMS.
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 a site is running on WordPress:
Search The Page Source Code
If you know how to bring up 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 …
(Viewing your web page source code using Firefox)
Let’s say that you are surfing the web and you visit a website that you like, and you’re wondering if the site was built using 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 “wp-content” either by scanning the code visually …
Or using the browser’s “Find” function …
(Using the Firefox web browser ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site is powered by WordPress or not.
Note: If you cannot find the words “wp-content” in the page source code, it doesn’t necessarily mean that this is not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if the site was built using WordPress, as we will soon see.
As the focus of this article is to help non-technical users, however, we have listed below a number of easy methods you can use to check if your site is powered by WordPress other than looking at the source code.
Just Ask Your Website Developer
While this may seem like the logical thing to do, a number of website development companies, for whatever reason, may build clients a website and not tell them it’s WordPress.
If you used a website developer or got somebody else to build you a website, just ask your developer or whoever built your site if the web site has been built using WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach the person who looks after your website, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while browsing the net late at night and you really need to know if it was built using WordPress?
Check Below Footer
If the site uses a WP theme where the theme templates have not been customized, you will typically see a “Powered by WordPress” message displayed in the footer section of the site …
(Powered by WordPress)
If these simple methods aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of telling whether a site runs on WordPress or not …
Tools That Tell You If A Website Is Built With WordPress
Here are a couple of tools that will tell you if a particular website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
IsItWP.com – WP Website Checker
(Is It WordPress?)
Is It WP is a free tool that can tell you if a website runs on WordPress or not.
Using this tool is super simple. Just paste the address of the website into the URL field and click the button.
The tool will go through the URL and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, which version of WordPress it is currently using …
If the web site was not built using WordPress, you will get a message like the one shown in the screen shot 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 – Add-On For Firefox & Chrome Web Browser
(Wappalyzer – Extension For Firefox / Chrome Browser)
If you browse the net using either the Firefox or Chrome web browsers and want to be able to instantly tell if the sites that you are visiting were built using WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a useful extension for your web 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.”
It’s also easy to install and easy to use.
After installing Wappalyzer on your browser, icons will display in your web browser, next to the site URL allowing you to see which technologies are installed on all the sites you visit …
If you see the WordPress icon showing on your browser menu (as shown in the screenshot above), then the site uses WordPress.
(A WordPress site!)
Visit the Wappalyzer add-on 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, go here:
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 information useful.
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