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 everything changed. 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 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 application like WordPress and other website-building software is huge, not so much in terms of the technical differences, but more importantly, regarding the areas that matter to most website owners, like web development costs, ease of use, ability to maintain the site up-to-date, managing content, etc.
Think about this …
Which of these options 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 cost that turns out to be significantly less than the cost of getting option ”A” above built.
If you went with site “B”, then you need to know more about the benefits of using WordPress, why WordPress can provide you with an eye-catching website that will usually cost far less to build than websites built using a web building application … and how to tell these apart!
WordPress is the world’s leading online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a powerful 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 beginner with no web design skills to use, yet it offers many helpful add-ons that make your web site more 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 capabilities, 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, yours is also a WordPress site.
And if you don’t have a website yet, or are considering getting one 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?
Was My Website Built With WordPress? How To Tell
Do you need to know if your website uses WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to this page because you’ve heard or read about all of the great advantages of using WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site was built using the WordPress software, 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 some simple ways to tell if sites are built with WordPress:
View Your 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 the page source code in the Firefox web browser)
Suppose that you are surfing the web and you come across a site that you like, and you wonder if the site uses WordPress …
First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.
In the page’s source code, you can search for the words “wp-content” either manually …
Or use your browser’s “Find” function …
(Use the Firefox browser ‘Find’ function)
This will quickly tell you if the site runs on WordPress or not.
Note: If you are unable to find “wp-content” within the source code, it doesn’t mean that it’s not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if the site was built using WordPress, as we will soon be discussing.
As the focus of this article is to help non “techies”, however, below you will find a number of easy methods you can use to check if your web site is built with WordPress other than searching the source code.
Simply Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the most obvious thing to do, a number of web developers, for whatever reason, will build clients a website and not tell them it’s been built with WordPress.
If you used the services of a website developer or got somebody else to build you a website, just ask your web developer or whoever built your website if your web site runs on WordPress.
That was simple, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach your webmaster, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while surfing the net late at night and want to know if the site was built with WordPress?
Check Below Footer
If the site uses a WP theme and the site templates have not been edited, you can often see a “Proudly powered by WordPress” message 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 identifying WordPress sites …
Online Tools That Tell You If A Website Was Built Using WordPress
Here are a some tools that will tell you if a particular website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
IsItWP.com
(Is It WordPress? – WordPress Website Checking Tool)
Is It WordPress? is a free tool that lets you quickly check if a site was built with WordPress or not.
Using this site is really quite simple. Just enter the address of the site into the search field and click the button.
The tool will go and search through the page code on the URL 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 WordPress-powered web site or blog, you will get a message like the one below …
To use this tool, 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 – Browser Add-On (Firefox / Chrome)
(Wappalyzer – Web Browser Extension (Firefox / Chrome))
If you browse the net using either the Firefox or Chrome browsers and would like to be able to know if the sites that you are visiting have been built using WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a useful add-on for your web browser.
Wappalyzer helps you identify what type of 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 an easy to install and easy to use web browser extension.
After installing Wappalyzer on your web browser, icons will show up in your browser, in the URL field allowing you to see which software is installed on the sites you are visiting …
If the WordPress icon displays on the browser menu (as the above screenshot shows), then the site uses WordPress.
(A WordPress site!)
Go here to visit the website:
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 you have found the above the information in this tutorial useful.
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