It used to be that blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell them apart.
Then WordPress came along and everything changed. Now, it’s getting increasingly harder to tell the difference between blogs and websites. 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 tool like WordPress and other website-building tools is huge, not so much in terms of the technical differences, but more importantly, regarding the areas that matter to most website owners, like web development costs, ease of use, ability to keep the website 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 turns out to be quite expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking website, but for a tiny fraction of the cost of getting option ”A” built.
If you picked website “B”, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can be used to create a beautiful website that could cost far less to build than websites which are built with web-building software … and how to tell these two types apart!
WordPress is the world’s most popular online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a powerful CMS application that is ideally suited for all types of businesses.
Whether your reason for having an online presence is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a beginner with no web design skills to use, yet it offers many helpful tools that make your web site highly effective in terms of getting your content published, promoting visitor interaction, generating business leads and sales, enhancing your site’s functionality, 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 website 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?
Is My Site WordPress?
Do you need to know if a website is powered by WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to our site because you’ve read about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on 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 ways to tell if sites are built using WordPress:
Look At The Page 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 tell-tale footprints that the site was built using WordPress …
(View your web page source code using the Firefox web browser)
Suppose that you are surfing the web and you come across a website that you like, and you’re wondering if the site was built with 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 by scanning the code …
Or use the browser’s “Find” function …
(Using the Firefox web browser ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site runs on WordPress or not.
Note: If you do not find the words “wp-content” in the page source code, it does not necessarily mean that the website is not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to tell if the site was built using the WordPress software, 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 ways to check if your web site is built using WordPress other than searching through the source code.
Ask Your Website Developer
While this may seem like the most logical thing to do, a number of web development companies, for whatever reason, will build their clients a website and not tell them it’s been built with WordPress.
If you employed the services of a website developer or got somebody else to build you a website, just ask your developer or whoever built your website if the site has been built using WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach the person who built your site, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while surfing online and need to know if the site was built with WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WP theme where the web templates have not been modified, you can often find a “Proudly powered by WordPress” message shown in the footer area …
(Powered by WordPress – site footer)
If these simple methods haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of telling whether a website uses WordPress or not …
Sites That Tell You If A Website Is Built With WordPress
Here are a some online applications that can tell you if your website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
IsItWP.com
(Is It WordPress? – WP Website Checker)
Is It WP? is a free tool that tells you if a website uses WordPress or not.
Using this site is really easy. Just type the URL of the website into the URL field and click the button next to it.
It will go through the URL and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, which version of WordPress the site is currently using …
If the web site is not a WP website, you will get 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 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.com
(Wappalyzer)
If you use either the Firefox or Chrome browser and want to be able to know if the sites that you are visiting have been built using WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a very useful extension for your web browser.
Wappalyzer identifies what 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.”
It’s also a very easy to install and easy to use web browser extension.
Once you have installed Wappalyzer on your browser, icons will display in your web browser identifying which technologies are being used by the sites you are visiting …
If you see the WordPress icon displayed on your browser menu (as the above screenshot shows), then the site uses WordPress.
(It’s a WordPress site!)
Go here to learn more:
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 you have found this the information in this tutorial useful.
***
"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)