When the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell the difference between the two.
Then WordPress came along and changed all this. Now, it’s becoming 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 Is Powering A Website?)
For many website owners, understanding the difference between a CMS application 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 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 the following options would you choose?
A) An eye-catching, professional-looking website that turns out to be quite expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking website, but at a much cheaper cost than the cost of getting site ”A” above built.
If you picked option ”B” above, then you need to learn more about WordPress, why WordPress can provide you with a stunning website that could cost far less to build than websites built using a website development application … 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 flexible and powerful content management system that is ideally suited for small, medium and even large businesses.
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 technical skills to use, and offers many helpful features that make your web site extremely 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 also driven by the WordPress CMS.
And if you don’t have a website yet, or are thinking of getting one built, then wouldn’t it be great to be able 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 quite inexpensively?
The Easy Way To Tell If Your Website Was Built Using WP Software
Do you need to know if a website was built using WordPress? Maybe you’ve come here because you’ve heard about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site was built using WordPress, or some other content management system.
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 ways to tell if a website is powered by WordPress:
Look At Your 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 an obvious tell-tale footprint that the site was built using WordPress …
(How to view web page source code in Firefox)
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 source code, you can search for “wp-content” either by scanning the code …
Or using the browser’s “Find” function …
(Using Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site was built with WordPress or not.
Note: If you are unable to see “wp-content” in the source code, it doesn’t necessarily mean that this is not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to find out if a site was built using the WordPress software, as we will soon be discussing.
As the point of this article is to help non “techies”, however, below you will find a number of easier ways to check if your website is powered by WordPress other than searching through the source code.
Ask Your Web Developer
While this may seem like the logical thing to do, a number of web 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 can’t tell what CMS application was used to build it, just ask your webmaster or whoever built your website if your web site was built using WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach the person who built your site, or what if you’ve come across a website that you really like while browsing the net and you really want to know if the site was built using WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WordPress theme where the them template has not been customized, you can often see a “Powered by WordPress” notice shown at the bottom of the site …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress – site footer area)
If the simple methods above haven’t helped 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 some online applications that will tell you if your website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WordPress? – WordPress Checking Tool
(Is It WordPress?)
IsItWP.com is a free tool that lets you quickly check if a site was built using WordPress or not.
Using this tool is really simple. Just type in or paste in the address of the site into the search field and click the button.
It will then go and search through the URL files and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, it will even tell you which version of WordPress it is currently using …
If the site does not run on WordPress, 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 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
(Wappalyzer)
If you browse the net using either Firefox or Google Chrome and would like to be able to instantly tell if the sites that you are visiting use WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a very useful extension to install on your web browser.
Wappalyzer identifies 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 easy to install and very easy to use.
After installing Wappalyzer on your web browser, icons will appear in your web browser menu allowing you to see which technologies are being used by the sites you are visiting …
If you see the WordPress icon on the browser menu (as the above screen shot shows), then the site has been built with WordPress.
(A WordPress site!)
Visit the Wappalyzer extension 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, 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 information useful.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum