When the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell blogs and websites apart.
Then WordPress came along and everything changed. Now, it’s becoming increasingly harder 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’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 software is huge, not so much in terms of the technical differences, but more importantly, in terms of the areas that many website owners care about, like web development costs, ease of use, ability to keep the website up-to-date, managing web content, etc.
Think about this …
Which of these options 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 cost that is significantly less than the cost of getting option ”A” built.
If you picked option “B”, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can provide you with an attractive, professional-looking and fully functional website that will probably cost far less to build than websites built using website-building software … and how to tell the two 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 tool suitable for local businesses.
Whether your reason for having an online presence is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a novice with no programming skills to use and manage, and offers many helpful add-ons that make your web site more effective when it comes to 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, yours is also a WordPress site.
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 something similarly built for your business quite inexpensively?
Tell-Tale Signs It’s A WordPress Web Site And WordPress-Checking Tools
Do you need to know if your website uses WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to our site because you’ve read wonderful things about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site was built using the WordPress software, or some other website 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 a site is running on WordPress:
Look At Your Page Source Code
If you know how to search 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 tell-tale footprint …
(How to view your page source code in Firefox)
Suppose that you are browsing online and you visit a website that you like, and you wonder if the site uses 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, search for the words “wp-content” either manually …
Or using your 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 do not find “wp-content” in the page source code, it does not necessarily mean that the site you’re looking at is not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if the site runs on the WordPress software, as we will soon be discussing.
As the focus of this post is to try and help non “techies”, however, we have listed below a number of easier methods you can use to check if your website is built with WordPress other than searching the source code.
Simply Ask Your Web Developer
While this may seem like the logical thing to do, some web developers, for whatever reason, may build their clients a website and not tell them it’s WordPress.
If you have an existing website and you’re not sure what CMS application was used to build it, just ask your developer or whoever built your web site if your website has been built with WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t get in touch with your webmaster, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while surfing online and you really want to know if it was built with WordPress?
Check Below The Footer
If the site uses a WP theme and the website template has not been modified, you will often find a “Proudly powered by WordPress” notice shown at the bottom of the site …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress – site footer area)
If these simple methods aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of telling whether a website runs on WordPress or not …
Sites That Can Tell You If A Website Has Been Built With WordPress
Here are a couple of sites that can tell you if your website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP
(Is It WordPress?)
Is It WordPress? is a free tool that lets you easily check if a site was built with WordPress or not.
Using this site is really quite easy. Just type the address of the site into the URL 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, it will even tell you which version of WordPress it is currently using …
If the site is not a WordPress-driven website, you will see a message like the one shown in the screenshot 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 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 – Browser Add-On (Firefox / Chrome)
(Wappalyzer – Web Browser Extension (Firefox / Chrome))
If you use a browser like Firefox or Google Chrome and want to be able to tell if the sites that you are visiting are WP sites, then Wappalyzer is a useful add-on to install on your 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.”
Wappalyzer is also very easy to install.
After installing Wappalyzer on your browser, icons will show up in your browser menu, next to the site URL 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 the above screenshot shows), then the site uses WordPress.
(It’s a WordPress site!)
Go here to visit the website:
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, go here:
I hope you have found this 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