When the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. One could easily tell the difference between the two.
Then the WordPress CMS came along and changed all this. Now, it’s getting almost impossible to tell if a website is being powered by a “blogging” content management system (CMS) like WordPress, or if it’s been developed using web-building software. 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 Your Website Is Powered By?)
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, regarding the things that matter to most website owners, like web development costs, ease of use, ability to keep the site 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 is 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 option “A” above.
If you picked option ”B” above, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can be used to create an attractive, professional-looking and fully functional website that could cost far less to build than websites which use web-building software … and how to tell the two apart!
WordPress is the world’s preferred online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a budget-friendly content management application 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 newbie with no technical knowledge to use, yet it offers an array of helpful tools 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, enhancing your site’s functionality, etc.
With almost one in every five websites around the world currently 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 considering 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?
How To Tell If A Web Site Is A WP Site
Do you need to know if a website was built using WordPress? Maybe you’ve come here because you’ve heard 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 some simple methods you can use to quickly tell if sites are built with WordPress:
View 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 obvious telltale footprints …
(Viewing page source code using Firefox)
Let’s say 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, you can search for “wp-content” either by scanning the code with your eyes …
Or using the 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 cannot locate “wp-content” in the page source code, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to find out if the site was built using WordPress, as we will soon see.
As the point of this post is to help non-technical users, however, below you will find a number of easier methods you can use to check if your web site is powered by WordPress other than scanning the source code.
Just Ask Your Webmaster
While this may seem like the most logical thing to do, a number of website development agencies, 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 was used to build it, just ask your webmaster or whoever built your web site if the web site runs on WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach your webmaster, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while surfing the net late at night and you want to know if it was built with WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WordPress theme where the website them template has not been edited, you will often see a “Powered by WordPress” notice shown at the bottom of the site …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress – site footer)
If the methods above haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …
Tools That Tell You If A Website Runs On WordPress
Here are a some tools that can tell you if a particular website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP
(Is It WordPress? – WP Checking Tool)
Is It WP? is a free tool that tells you if a website was built using WordPress or not.
Using this site is very simple. Just type the URL of the website into the search field and click the button next to it.
The tool will then search 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 site is not a WP web site or blog, you will see a message like the one 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.com
(Wappalyzer – Extension For Firefox & Chrome Browser)
If you browse the net using either 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 add-on to install on your browser.
Wappalyzer helps you identify 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.”
Wappalyzer is also an easy to install and very easy to use web browser extension.
After installing Wappalyzer, icons will show up in your web browser identifying which technologies are being used by all the sites you visit …
If the WordPress icon displays on the browser menu (as the above screen shot shows), then the site uses WordPress.
(A WordPress site!)
Go here to learn more about Wappalyzer:
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 information useful.
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