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 the WordPress CMS came along and changed all this. Now, it’s getting almost impossible 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 web 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 website owners, understanding the difference between a CMS tool like WordPress and other website-building software is huge, not so much in terms of the technical differences, but more importantly, regarding the areas that many website owners are mostly concerned with, such as web development costs, ease of use, ability to maintain the website 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 website, but at a much cheaper cost than the cost of getting option ”A” above built.
If you chose website ”B” above, then you need to know more about the benefits of using WordPress, why WordPress can provide you with a beautiful website that will normally end up costing you far less to build than websites which use a website development tool … and how to tell these two types apart!
WordPress is the world’s most used online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a flexible and powerful content management tool suitable for small, medium and even large businesses.
Whether your reason for having a website is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a beginner with no knowledge of HTML to use, yet it offers many helpful add-ons that make your web site extremely effective when it comes to getting your content published, promoting visitor engagement, generating business leads and sales, enhancing your site’s functionality, 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 a similar site built quite inexpensively?
Is My Web Site WordPress?
Do you need to know if your website is powered by WordPress? Maybe you’ve come here because you’ve heard or read about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site was built using the WordPress software, 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 a number of ways to tell if a website is powered by WordPress:
Search Your Source Code For The TellTale WordPress Footprint
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 …
(Viewing your web page source code using Firefox)
Let’s say that you are surfing the web and you visit a website that you like, and you would like to know if the site runs on WordPress …
First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.
After the source code of the page loads on your screen, you can search for the words “wp-content” either by visually scanning the code …
Or use your browser’s “Find” function …
(Use the Firefox web browser ‘Find’ function)
This will quickly 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 WordPress, as we will soon be discussing.
As the point of this post is to try and help non-technical users, however, we have listed below a number of easy ways to check if your site is built with WordPress other than viewing the source code.
Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the most logical thing to do, many website developers, for whatever reason, may build clients a website and not tell them it’s been built with WordPress.
If you employed the services of a website developer or got somebody else to build you a website, just ask your web developer or whoever built your web site if your website was built using WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach your webmaster, or what if you’ve come across a website that you really like while browsing online and need to know if the site was built with WordPress?
Check Below Footer
If the site uses a WP theme and the them template has not been customized, you will typically find a “Powered by WordPress” message displayed 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 couple of tools that can tell you if the website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP
(Is It WordPress? – WP Website Checker)
Is It WordPress? is a free tool that can tell you very quickly if a site runs on WordPress or not.
Using this site is really simple. Just enter the URL of the site into the search field and click the button next to it.
It will go through the URL pages and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, it will even tell you which version of WordPress the site is currently using …
If the web site is not a WordPress-driven web site or blog, you will get 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 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 – Add-On For Firefox & Chrome Browser
(Wappalyzer)
If you browse the net using either Firefox or Google Chrome and would like to be able to know if the sites that you are visiting use WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a great add-on for your web browser.
Wappalyzer tells you 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.”
It’s also an easy to install and very easy to use browser extension.
After installing the Wappalyzer extension on your browser, icons will show up in your browser menu, in the URL field allowing you to see which technologies are being used by the sites you visit …
If you see the WordPress icon on the browser menu (as the above screen shot shows), then the site uses WordPress.
(This is a WordPress site!)
Go here to visit the site:
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:
I hope that you have found the above the information in this tutorial useful.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now