When the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. One could easily tell the difference.
Then WordPress came along and changed everything. Now, it’s becoming more difficult to tell if the website was built using “blogging” applications like WordPress, or if it’s been developed using website-building software. 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.
(Can You Tell Which Application A Website Has Been Built With?)
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 things that many website owners are mostly concerned with, such as web development costs, ease of use, ability to maintain 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 expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking site, but at a cost that turns out to be significantly less than the cost of getting site ”A” built.
If you picked website “B”, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can give you an eye-catching website that could cost far less 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 content management software that is ideally suited for most types of business applications.
Whether your reason for having a website is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a novice with no technical knowledge to use, and offers many helpful tools that make your website extremely effective in terms of getting your content published and indexed by search engines, 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 powered by WordPress.
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 for your business quite inexpensively?
Is My Website Built Using WordPress? Tell-Tale Signs & WordPress-Checking Tools
Do you need to know if a 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 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 a number of ways to tell if a website has been built using WordPress:
Check Your 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 obvious tell-tale footprints …
(View your web page source code using Firefox)
Suppose that you are browsing online and you come across a website that you like, and you’re wondering if the site uses WordPress …
First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.
In the source code, search for words like “wp-content” either manually …
Or use your browser’s “Find” function …
(Using Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site was built using WordPress or not.
Note: If you do not locate “wp-content” within the source code, it does not necessarily mean that the website is 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 “techies”, however, we have listed below a number of easy ways to check if your website is built with WordPress other than looking at the source code.
Simply Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the most logical thing to do, some web development agencies, for whatever reason, may build clients a website and not tell them it’s WordPress.
If you have an existing web site and you can’t tell what application was used to build it, just ask your webmaster or whoever built your website if your site was built with WordPress.
That was simple, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach the person who looks after your website, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while surfing the net and you really would like to know if the site was built with WordPress?
Check Below The Footer
If the site uses a WP theme where the web theme templates have not been edited, you will often see a “Proudly powered by WordPress” message showing at the bottom of the site …
(Powered by WordPress – site footer section)
If the simple methods above aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …
Sites That Tell You If A Website Runs On WordPress
Here are a some sites that will tell you if your website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WordPress? – WordPress Site Checker
(Is It WordPress?)
Is It WordPress? is a free tool that can check very quickly if a site uses WordPress or not.
Using this tool is really quite easy. Just enter the URL of the site into the search field and click the button.
It will go through the URL code 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 web site is not a WP site, you will get a message like the one shown 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
(Wappalyzer)
If you use either the Firefox or Google Chrome web browser and want to be able to know if the sites that you are visiting use WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a useful add-on to install on your browser.
Wappalyzer tells you 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 to install and easy to use browser extension.
Once you have installed Wappalyzer on your browser, icons will appear in your web browser, next to the site URL allowing you to see which technologies are being used by all the sites you are visiting …
If you see the WordPress icon showing on the browser menu (as shown in the screen shot above), then the site uses WordPress.
(This is 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:
I hope that you have found this information useful.
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