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 the WordPress CMS came along and changed everything. Now, it’s getting 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 web design and also being able to tell what’s under the surface.
(Can You Tell Which Application Is Powering A Website?)
For many 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 areas that the majority of website owners are mostly concerned with, like web development costs, ease of use, ability to keep the website up-to-date, managing 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 site, but at a fraction of the cost of getting option ”A” above built.
If you decided to go with site “B”, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can give you an eye-catching website that could turn out to be much less expensive to build than websites which are built with traditional web editor tools … and how to tell these apart!
WordPress is the world’s leading online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a flexible and powerful content management tool suitable for businesses on a budget.
Whether your reason for having a website or blog is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a novice with no web design skills to use and manage, and offers many helpful tools that make your website highly effective when it comes to getting your content published, promoting visitor interaction, 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 probably powered by WordPress too.
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 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 a much smaller cost?
Is My Website Built With WordPress? Tell-Tale Signs & WP-Checking Tools
Do you need to know if your website uses WordPress? Maybe you’ve come here because you’ve heard or read about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on 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 methods you can use to quickly tell if sites are built using WordPress:
Check Your Source Code For WordPress Footprints
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 telltale footprint …
(Viewing your web page source code using the Firefox browser)
Suppose that you are browsing online and you come across a site that you like, and you’re wondering if the site uses WordPress …
First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.
In the source code, search for “wp-content” either by scanning the code …
Or use your browser’s “Find” function …
(Using the Firefox browser ‘Find’ function)
This will quickly tell you if the site was built using WordPress or not.
Note: If you are unable to see the words “wp-content” within the source code, it doesn’t mean that it’s not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if a site was built using the WordPress software, as we will soon see.
As the point of this post is to help non “techies”, however, we have listed below a number of easier methods you can use to check if your site is built with WordPress other than looking through the source code.
Simply Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the obvious thing to do, many website developers, for whatever reason, may build clients a website and not tell them it’s WordPress.
If you have an existing web site and you can’t tell what application was used to build it, just ask your webmaster or whoever built your website if your website was built using WordPress.
That was simple, 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 browsing the net late at night and you really would like to know if the site was built with WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WordPress theme where the templates have not been customized, you can often see a “Proudly powered by WordPress” notice showing at the bottom 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 was built with WordPress or not …
Tools That Can Tell You If A Website Has Been Built With WordPress
Here are a couple of sites that can tell you if a website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WordPress?
(IsItWP.com)
Is It WP is a free tool that can tell you very quickly if a website runs on WordPress or not.
Using this tool is very simple. Just add the address of the site into the search field and click the button.
It will then go and search through the site code 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 is not a WordPress site, you will see a message like 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 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 – Web Browser Extension (Firefox / Chrome))
If you use either the Firefox or Chrome web browser and would like to be able to know if the sites that you are visiting are WP sites, then Wappalyzer is a great extension to add to your web 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.”
Wappalyzer is also an easy to install and easy to use web browser add-on.
After installing Wappalyzer, icons will show up in your web browser, in the URL field allowing you to see which technologies are being used by all the sites you visit …
If you see the WordPress icon showing on your browser menu (as the above screenshot shows), then the site has been built with WordPress.
(This site has been built with WordPress!)
Visit the 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 this information useful.
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