When the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell them apart.
Then WordPress came along and revolutionized web publishing and online content management. 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 website design and also being able to tell what’s under the surface.
(Can You Tell Which Application Your Website Is Powered By?)
For website owners, understanding the difference between a CMS application 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 things that matter to most website owners, such as web development costs, ease of use, ability to keep 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 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” above.
If you selected site “B”, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can provide you with a stunning website that will typically turn out to be much less expensive to build than websites built using traditional website editing applications … 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 that is ideally suited for most business needs.
Whether your reason for having a website or blog is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a novice with no programming skills to use and manage, and offers an array of helpful functions that make your web presence highly effective in terms of getting your content published and indexed by search engines, promoting visitor engagement, generating business leads and sales, 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 website could probably be powered by WordPress too.
And if you don’t have a website yet, or are considering 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?
How To Check If Your Website Was Built With WordPress
Do you need to know if your website uses WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to this page because you’ve heard about all of the great benefits of using WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site was built using WordPress, or some other CMS.
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 methods you can use to quickly tell if sites are powered WordPress:
View The Source Code
If you know how to access 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 that the site was built with WordPress …
(Viewing your web page source code using the Firefox web browser)
Let’s say that you are surfing the web and you come across a site 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.
After the source code of the site loads on your screen, search for the words “wp-content” either manually …
Or use the browser’s “Find” function …
(Use the Firefox web browser ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site runs on WordPress or not.
Note: If you do not see “wp-content” in the source code, it doesn’t mean that you are not looking at a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if the site was built using WordPress, as we will soon be discussing.
As the focus of this article is to help non “techies”, however, we have listed below a number of easier methods you can use to check if your web site is built with WordPress other than looking at the source code.
Simply Ask Your Website Developer
While this may seem like the most logical thing to do, some web developers, for whatever reason, may build their clients a website and not tell them it’s been built with WordPress.
If you used a website developer or got somebody else to build you a website, just ask your webmaster or whoever built your site if the website was built with WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t get in touch with your website developer, or what if you’ve come across a website that you really like while surfing the net and need to know if it was built with WordPress?
Check Below The Footer
If the site uses a WordPress theme and the web templates have not been modified, you will often see a “Powered by WordPress” message showing in the footer section of the site …
(Powered by WordPress – footer area)
If the simple methods above haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of telling whether a website uses WordPress or not …
Tools That Tell You If A Website Was Built Using WordPress
Here are a some tools that will tell you if the website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WordPress? – WP Checker
(IsItWP.com – WP Checker)
Is It WP is a free tool that can check very quickly if a site uses WordPress or not.
Using this site is very easy. Just add the address of the site into the URL field and click the button.
The tool will then go through the URL files 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 site is not a WP web site or blog, you will see a message similar to the one shown in the screen shot 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 – Browser Add-On (Firefox / Chrome))
If you use a web browser such as Firefox or Chrome and want to be able to know if the sites that you are visiting are powered by WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a very useful extension for your browser.
Wappalyzer tells you what type of software is installed on 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 very easy to install and very easy to use.
After installing Wappalyzer, icons will appear in your browser menu, in the URL field allowing you to see which technologies are being used by the sites you are visiting …
If the WordPress icon displays on your browser menu (as the above screenshot shows), then the site uses WordPress.
(This website is built using WordPress!)
Visit the site 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, visit the site below:
I hope you have found this tutorial useful.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)