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 online publishing and online content management. Now, it’s getting 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 website 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 many website owners, understanding the difference between a CMS tool like WordPress and other website-building tools is huge, not so much in terms of the technical differences, but more importantly, regarding the areas that many website owners care most about, such as web development costs, ease of use, ability to keep the site 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 is actually expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking site, but at a tiny fraction of the cost of getting site ”A” above built.
If you decided to go with site ”B” above, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can be used to create an eye-catching website that will usually turn out to be far less expensive to build than websites which use web-building software … and how to tell these two types apart!
WordPress is the world’s preferred online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a powerful CMS platform suitable for most types of business applications.
Whether your reason for having an online presence is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a beginner with no knowledge of web coding to use, yet it offers an array of helpful tools that make your web presence more effective when it comes to getting your content published, promoting visitor engagement, generating business leads and sales, enhancing your site’s capabilities, 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 site is probably powered by WordPress too.
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 to a smaller budget if required?
The Easy Way To Tell If Your Blog Runs On The WP CMS Platform
Do you need to know if a website was built using WordPress? Maybe you’ve come here because you’ve heard or read wonderful things about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on 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 methods you can use to quickly tell if sites are running on WordPress:
Look At Your Source Code
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 an obvious tell-tale footprint …
(Viewing page source code in Firefox)
Let’s say that you are surfing the web and you come across a website that you like, and you would like to know if the site is built with 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 words like “wp-content” either by scanning the code visually …
Or use the browser’s “Find” function …
(Using Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site is powered by WordPress or not.
Note: If you cannot see “wp-content” in the page source code, it does not mean that you are not looking at a WordPress site.
There are other ways to find out if the site runs on the WordPress software, as we will soon see.
As the point of this post is to try and help non “techies”, however, below you will find a number of easier ways to check if your website is built with WordPress other than scanning the source code.
Simply Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the most logical thing to do, many 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 CMS application is driving it, just ask your web developer or whoever built your website if your website runs on WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach your website developer, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while browsing online and need to know if it was built with WordPress?
Check Below The Footer
If the site uses a WordPress theme and the theme templates have not been customized, you can often find a “Proudly powered by WordPress” notice shown in the footer section of the site …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress – footer)
If these simple methods haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …
Sites That Can Tell You If A Website Runs On WordPress
Here are a some online applications that can tell you if a website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP
(Is It WordPress?)
IsItWP.com is a free tool that can tell you very quickly if a site was built with WordPress or not.
Using this site is very easy. Just enter the address of the site into the search field and click the button next to it.
The tool will search through the page code on the URL and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, which version of WordPress the site is currently using …
If the web site is not powered by WordPress, you will see a message similar to the one shown in the screenshot 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 – Extension For Firefox & Chrome Web Browser
(Wappalyzer – Add-On For Firefox / Chrome Browser)
If you use either the Firefox or Google Chrome web browser and would like to be able to tell if the sites that you are visiting use WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a great add-on to install on your browser.
Wappalyzer identifies what type of software is installed in the sites you are visiting.
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 browser add-on to install and use.
Once you have installed Wappalyzer on your browser, icons will display in your web browser menu, in the URL field identifying which software is installed on the sites you visit …
If you see the WordPress icon on your browser menu (as the above screenshot shows), then the site uses WordPress.
(A WordPress site!)
Go here to download and install the Wappalyzer web browser add-on:
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, visit the site below:
I hope you have found this tutorial useful.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group