Once upon a time and not so long ago, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. One could easily tell the difference.
Then WordPress came along and revolutionized web publishing. 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 kind of web application is actually powering the site.
(Can You Tell Which Application Websites Are Built With?)
For many website owners, understanding the difference between a Content Management System 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 things that matter to most website owners, like 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 turns out to be fairly expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking site, but at a much cheaper price than the cost of getting site ”A” built.
If you decided to go with website “B”, then you need to know more about the benefits of using WordPress, why WordPress can be used to create a professional-looking website that will normally turn out to be far less expensive to build than websites which use traditional website development tools … 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 powerful and easy-to-use CMS application that is ideally suited for all businesses and non-technical users.
Whether your reason for having an online presence is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a novice with no web design skills to use, yet it offers an array of helpful tools that make your web site highly 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 functionality, 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 WP CMS.
And if you don’t have a website yet, or are thinking of 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 your business quite inexpensively?
How Can I Check If My Website Was Built With WordPress?
Do you need to know if a website was built using WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to our site because you’ve heard about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site was built using the WordPress software, 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 some simple ways to tell if sites are running on WordPress:
View The 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 tell-tale footprints …
(How to view web page source code using the Firefox browser)
Let’s say that you are browsing online and you visit a web site 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.
Once the source code of the page loads on your screen, you can search for “wp-content” either by visually scanning the code …
Or use the browser’s “Find” function …
(Use Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will quickly tell you if the site is powered by WordPress or not.
Note: If you do not see “wp-content” within the source code, it does not mean that the site you’re looking at is not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if the site runs on WordPress, as we will soon be discussing.
As the focus of this article is to try and help non “techies”, however, below you will find a number of easier ways to check if your web site is built with WordPress other than viewing the source code.
Simply Ask Your Website Developer
While this may seem like the most logical thing to do, some website developers, for whatever reason, may build their clients a website and not tell them it’s been built with WordPress.
If you have an existing website and you can’t tell what CMS application is driving it, just ask your web developer or whoever built your web site if the website has been built using WordPress.
That was simple, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach your website developer, or what if you’ve come across a website that you really like while surfing the net and you really want to know if it was built with WordPress?
Check Below Footer
If the site uses a WP theme where the them template has not been customized, you can typically find a “Proudly powered by WordPress” message shown at the bottom of the site …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress – site footer)
If these simple methods aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …
Tools That Tell You If A Website Is Built With WordPress
Here are a couple of sites that will tell you if a particular website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP
(IsItWP.com – WordPress Site Checking Tool)
IsItWP.com is a free tool that can check very quickly if a site runs on WordPress or not.
Using this tool is really easy. Just paste the URL of the site into the search field and click the button next to it.
It will then search through the URL files 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 web site is not a WP website, you will get a message similar to 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.com
(Wappalyzer.com)
If you browse the net using either the Firefox or Chrome web browsers and would like to be able to instantly tell if the sites that you are visiting are WP-powered, then Wappalyzer is a great extension to add to your browser.
Wappalyzer helps you identify what type of software is installed in 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 easy to install and easy to use.
Once you have installed Wappalyzer on your web browser, icons will appear in your web browser identifying which software is installed on all the sites you are visiting …
If the WordPress icon shows up on the browser menu (as shown in the screen shot above), then the site has been built with WordPress.
(It’s a WordPress site!)
To learn more, 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:
We hope that you have found the above tutorial useful.
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org