It used to be that 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 getting increasingly harder to tell the difference between blogs and websites. 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 surface.
(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 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 matter to most website owners, like web development costs, ease of use, ability to keep the website 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 website, but for a fraction of the cost of getting site ”A” above built.
If you chose website ”B” above, then you need to learn more about the benefits of using WordPress, why WordPress can be used to create a beautiful website that will usually end up costing you far less to build than websites which use a web development tool … and how to tell these apart!
WordPress is the world’s most popular online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a powerful and easy-to-use content management system that is ideally suited for most business needs.
Whether your reason for having a web site is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a newbie with no web design skills to use and manage, yet it offers many helpful features that make your web site extremely effective in terms of getting your content published and indexed by search engines, 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 site is also driven by the WordPress CMS.
And if you don’t have a website yet, or are thinking of getting a website 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?
Is My Blog WordPress?
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 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 ways to tell if sites are running on WordPress:
Search The 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 a telltale footprint …
(How to view page source code in the Firefox web browser)
Let’s say that you are surfing the web and you come across a website that you like, and you wonder if the site was built with WordPress …
First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.
After the source code of the site loads on your screen, you can search for words like “wp-content” either manually …
Or using your browser’s “Find” function …
(Use Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will quickly tell you if the site was built with WordPress or not.
Note: If you are unable to see the words “wp-content” in the page source code, it doesn’t mean that it’s not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if the site runs on the WordPress software, as we will soon discuss.
As the focus of this article is to help non-technical users, however, below you will find a number of easier ways to check if your website is built using WordPress other than looking at the source code.
Simply Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the obvious thing to do, some web development companies, for whatever reason, will build clients a website and not tell them it’s been built with WordPress.
If you have an existing website and you’re not sure what application was used to build it, just ask your webmaster or whoever built your web site if the website runs on 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 website that you really like while surfing online and want to know if it was built with WordPress?
Check Below Footer
If the site uses a WordPress theme where the theme templates have not been modified, you can typically see a “Proudly powered by WordPress” message showing at the bottom of the site …
(Powered by WordPress – footer)
If the methods above haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …
Online Tools That Can Tell You If A Website Runs On WordPress
Here are a couple of tools that will tell you if the website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WordPress?
(Is It WP – WP Website Checker)
Is It WP? is a free online tool that can check very quickly if a website uses WordPress or not.
Using this tool is really quite easy. Just paste the address of the website into the URL field and click the button next to it.
It will go through the URL files and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, which version of WordPress it is currently using …
If the web site is not a WP website, you will see a message similar to the one shown in the screen shot 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 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.com
(Wappalyzer.com)
If you use either the Firefox or Google Chrome web browser and would like to be able to know if the sites that you are visiting were built using WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a great extension for your browser.
Wappalyzer helps you identify 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.”
Wappalyzer is also an easy extension to install and use.
After installing Wappalyzer on your web browser, icons will show up in your web browser allowing you to see which software is installed on all the sites you are visiting …
If you see the WordPress icon on your browser menu (as shown in the screen shot above), then the site uses WordPress.
(This is a WordPress site!)
To learn more and download the Wappalyzer browser extension, go 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 you have found the above tutorial 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