Once upon a time and not so long ago, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. One could easily tell the difference between the two.
Then WordPress came along and changed everything. Now, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to tell the difference between what applications are being used to build the two. 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 Your Website?)
For website owners, understanding the difference between a CMS application 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 areas that matter to most website owners, 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 options below 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 much cheaper cost than the cost of getting option ”A” built.
If you decided to go with website “B”, then you need to learn more about WordPress, why WordPress can provide you with a beautiful website that could turn out to be much less expensive to build than websites built using a web building application … and how to tell these apart!
WordPress is the world’s most used online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a budget-friendly content management system 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 novice with no knowledge of web coding to use, yet it offers an array of helpful functions that make your website more effective in terms of getting your content published, promoting visitor interaction, generating business leads and sales, 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, your website could probably be powered by WordPress too.
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 website 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 to a smaller budget if required?
Does My Blog Run On WordPress?
Do you need to know if your website is powered by WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to our site because you’ve read or heard wonderful things 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 some simple methods you can use to quickly tell if a site has been built using WordPress:
Check The Page Source Code
If you know how to search 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 telltale footprint that the site was built using WordPress …
(Viewing web page source code in the Firefox web browser)
Suppose that you are browsing online and you visit a website 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 page’s source code, search for “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 was built with WordPress or not.
Note: If you do not see 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 runs on WordPress, as we will soon discuss.
As the point of this post is to try and help non-technical users, however, below you will find a number of easy ways to check if your website is powered by WordPress other than searching the source code.
Just Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the most logical thing to do, a number of web developers, 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 application is driving it, just ask your developer or whoever built your web site if it was built with WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach the person who built your website, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while surfing online and you need to know if it was built using WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WordPress theme where the theme templates have not been customized, you will often find a “Powered by WordPress” notice showing at the bottom of the site …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress)
If the methods above aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of telling whether a site uses WordPress or not …
Sites That Can Tell You If A Website Is Built With WordPress
Here are a some tools that can tell you if a website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
IsItWP.com
(IsItWP.com)
IsItWP.com is a free online tool that tells you if a website was built using WordPress or not.
Using this site is really simple. Just enter the URL of the website into the search field and click the button next to it.
The tool will then 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 the site 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 Chrome and want to be able to see if the sites that you are visiting are WordPress-powered, then Wappalyzer is a very useful add-on to install on your web browser.
Wappalyzer identifies 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, icons will display in your browser menu identifying which technologies are installed on the sites you visit …
If the WordPress icon shows up on the browser menu (as the above screen shot shows), then the site uses WordPress.
(It’s a WordPress site!)
Go here to learn more and download the Wappalyzer extension:
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, go here:
We hope that you have found the above information 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