Once upon a time and not so long ago, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell blogs and websites apart.
Then WordPress came along and changed everything. 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 web design and also being able to tell what type of web application is actually powering the site.
(Can You Tell Which Application Websites Are Built With?)
For website owners, understanding the difference between a Content Management System 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 the majority of website owners care about, 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 following options 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 cost that is significantly less than the cost of getting site “A” above.
If you picked option “B”, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can be used to create a stunning website that will probably cost far less to build than websites which use website-building software … and how to tell these apart!
WordPress is the world’s leading online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a powerful and easy-to-use content management system that is ideally suited for most business needs.
Whether your reason for having a website is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a newbie with no knowledge of HTML to use, yet it offers many helpful add-ons that make your website 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 website is probably powered by WordPress too.
And if you don’t have a website yet, or are thinking of getting a website 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 for your business 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 this page because you’ve heard about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on WordPress, 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 sites are powered WordPress:
View The 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 web page source code in the Firefox web browser)
Suppose that you are surfing the web and you visit a site that you like, and you wonder if the site is built on WordPress …
First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.
In the source code, you can search for words like “wp-content” either manually …
Or using your browser’s “Find” function …
(Use Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will quickly tell you if the site runs on WordPress or not.
Note: If you do not see “wp-content” in the page source code, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the website is not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if a site was built using WordPress, as we will soon see.
As the focus of this post is to try and help non-technical users, however, below you will find a number of easier methods you can use to check if your web site is built using WordPress other than looking at the source code.
Simply Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the logical thing to do, a number of web development companies, for whatever reason, may build their clients a website and not tell them it’s been built with WordPress.
If you have an existing website and you’re not sure what application is driving it, just ask your webmaster or whoever built your web site if your website was 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 website that you really like while browsing online and you really want to know if it was built with WordPress?
Check Below The Footer
If the site uses a WordPress theme and the templates have not been customized, you can often see a “Proudly powered by WordPress” message displayed at the bottom of the site …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress)
If the simple methods above aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of telling whether a website was built using WordPress or not …
Sites That Can Tell You If A Website Runs On WordPress
Here are a couple of online applications that can tell you if your website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WordPress?
(IsItWP.com)
Is It WP? is a free tool that can tell you very quickly if a website uses WordPress or not.
Using this tool is very simple. Just add the URL of the website into the search field and click the button.
It will search through the URL files and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, which version of WordPress it is currently using …
If the web site does not run on WordPress, you will get a message similar to the one shown in the screenshot 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 Theme 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 – Web Browser Add-On (Firefox / Chrome)
(Wappalyzer – Extension For Firefox & Chrome Web Browser)
If you use either the Firefox or Chrome browser and want to be able to tell if the sites that you are visiting use WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a useful extension for your browser.
Wappalyzer identifies what 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 easy to install and very easy to use.
After installing Wappalyzer, icons will show up in your browser identifying which software is installed on the sites you are visiting …
If the WordPress icon displays on your browser menu (as the above screen shot shows), then the site has been built with WordPress.
(This is a WordPress site!)
To visit the site, 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 you have found the above information useful.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group