It used to be that blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell the difference between the two.
Then the WordPress CMS came along and revolutionized online publishing. Now, it’s getting harder to tell if the website is being powered by a “blogging” content management system (CMS) like the WP CMS, 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 website design and also being able to tell what’s under the surface.
(Can You Tell Which Application Your Website Is Powered By?)
For many 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 areas 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 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 website, but at a cost that turns out to be significantly less than the cost of getting site ”A”.
If you selected website “B”, then you need to know more about the benefits of using WordPress, why WordPress can give you an eye-catching website that will normally end up costing you far less to build than websites which use a web development tool … and how to tell the two types apart!
WordPress is the world’s most used online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a budget-friendly CMS platform that is ideally suited for all businesses and non-technical users.
Whether your reason for having a digital presence 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 tools that make your web presence extremely effective in terms of getting your content published and indexed by search engines, promoting visitor engagement, generating business leads and sales, enhancing your site’s capabilities, 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 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 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 to a smaller budget if required?
The Easy Way To Tell If Your Web Site Runs On WordPress Software
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 WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on 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 ways to tell if sites are built with 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 obvious telltale footprints …
(View the web page source code in Firefox)
Suppose that you are surfing the web and you come across a site that you like, and you would like to know if the site uses WordPress …
First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.
In the page’s source code, you can search for words like “wp-content” either manually …
Or use the browser’s “Find” function …
(Using Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will quickly tell you if the site runs on WordPress or not.
Note: If you are unable to 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 the site runs on WordPress, as we will soon see.
As the point of this article is to help non “techies”, 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 viewing the source code.
Just Ask Your Web Developer
While this may seem like the obvious thing to do, some web developers, for whatever reason, will build their clients a website and not tell them it’s been built with WordPress.
If you hired a website developer or got somebody else to build your website, just ask your developer or whoever built your site if your site runs on WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach your website developer, or what if you’ve come across a website that you really like while browsing the net late at night and you really want to know if it was built with WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WordPress theme where the web theme templates have not been edited, you will often see a “Powered by WordPress” notice showing below the footer section of the site …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress – footer)
If these simple methods aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …
Sites That Can Tell You If A Website Uses WordPress
Here are a some tools that can tell you if a website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP – WP Website Checker
(IsItWP.com)
Is It WP? is a free online tool that can check if a website runs on WordPress or not.
Using this site is very easy. Just type in or paste in the address of the site into the URL field and click the button.
It will then go through the URL pages 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 web site is not powered by WordPress, you will get 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 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 – Add-On For Firefox / Chrome Browser
(Wappalyzer – Add-On For Firefox / Chrome Browser)
If you browse the net using either the Firefox or Google Chrome web browsers and would like to be able to tell if the sites that you are visiting use WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a very useful add-on to install on your browser.
Wappalyzer identifies what software is installed on 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.”
Wappalyzer is also a very easy add-on to install.
Once you have installed Wappalyzer, icons will appear in your browser menu identifying which software is installed on the sites you are visiting …
If you see the WordPress icon displayed on your browser menu (as shown in the screen shot above), then the site has been built with WordPress.
(A WordPress site!)
Visit the Wappalyzer browser add-on 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 the above information useful.
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