Once upon a time and not so long ago, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell the difference between the two.
Then WordPress came along and changed everything. Now, it’s becoming harder to tell the difference between what software is being used to build the two. 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”.
(Can You Tell Which Application A Website Has Been Built With?)
For many 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, regarding the areas that many website owners care most about, like 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 is expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking website, but at a cost that turns out to be significantly less than the cost of getting option ”A” built.
If you decided to go with website ”B” above, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can give you a professional-looking website that will probably cost far less to build than websites which use a web building application … 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 software that is ideally suited for ”non-techy” website owners.
Whether your reason for having a digital presence is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a newbie with no knowledge of web coding to use and manage, yet it offers an array of helpful tools that make your web presence extremely effective in terms of getting your content published and indexed by search engines, promoting visitor interaction, 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 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 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 something similarly built quite inexpensively?
Is My Website Built With WordPress? How To Tell
Do you need to know if a website is powered by WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to our site because you’ve read or heard wonderful things about all of the great benefits of using 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 a number of ways to tell if sites are running on WordPress:
Search Your 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 obvious tell-tale footprints …
(Viewing web page source code in Firefox)
Suppose that you are surfing the web and you come across a site that you like, and you wonder if the site runs on WordPress …
First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.
Once the source code of the site loads on your screen, search for the words “wp-content” either manually …
Or use your browser’s “Find” function …
(Using Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will quickly tell you if the site was built with WordPress or not.
Note: If you are unable to find “wp-content” within the page source code, it doesn’t necessarily mean that this is not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to find out if the site runs on the WordPress software, as we will soon be discussing.
As the point of this post is to try and help non “techies”, however, we have listed below a number of easy methods you can use to check if your website is built with WordPress other than searching the source code.
Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the most obvious thing to do, many 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 web site and you can’t tell what application is driving it, just ask your web developer or whoever built your web site if your website runs on WordPress.
That was simple, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach the person who built your website, or what if you’ve come across a website that you really like while browsing online and you want to know if the site was built with WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WP theme and the site template has not been edited, you will typically find a “Powered by WordPress” message displayed in the footer section …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress)
If these simple methods aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …
Tools That Can Tell You If A Website Has Been Built With WordPress
Here are a some sites that can tell you if the website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP – WordPress Site Checker
(Is It WordPress?)
IsItWP.com is a free online tool that can tell you if a website runs on WordPress or not.
Using this tool is very easy. Just type the address of the site into the search field and click the button next to it.
It will 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 it is currently using …
If the web site has not been built with WordPress, you will see a message similar to the one 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.com
(Wappalyzer)
If you browse the net using either Firefox or Chrome and want to be able to see if the sites that you are visiting are WP sites, then Wappalyzer is a great extension to add to your browser.
Wappalyzer tells you 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.”
It’s also a very easy browser add-on to install.
After installing Wappalyzer, icons will show up in your browser menu, next to the site URL allowing you to see which software is being used by the sites you visit …
If you see the WordPress icon showing on your browser menu (as the above screenshot shows), 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, visit the site below:
We hope that you have found this tutorial useful.
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"Learning WordPress has been a huge stumbling block for me. I've been looking for something that covers absolutely everything but doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Thank you so much ... you have just provided me with what I have been looking for! Truly appreciated!" - Tanya