Does Your Website Run On WordPress? How To Tell

Does your website run on WordPress? Here are some tell-tale signs that a website was built with WordPress …

WordPress For BeginnersWhen the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell the two apart.

Then WordPress came along and changed everything. Now, it’s getting more and more difficult to tell the difference between what tools are 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”.

Is My Website Built Using WordPress? Tell-Tale Signs & WordPress-Checking Tools

(Can You Tell Which Application Your Website Is Powered By?)

For website owners, understanding the difference between a CMS application like WordPress and other website-building tools 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 are concerned with, like web development costs, ease of use, ability to maintain the website 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 turns out to be fairly expensive to build, or

B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking site, but at a much cheaper price than the cost of getting site ”A” built.

If you decided to go with option ”B” above, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can be used to create an eye-catching website that could cost far less to build than websites which use a website development 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 budget-friendly content management system that is ideally suited for ”non-techy” website owners.

Whether your reason for having a website is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a novice with no technical skills to use, and offers an array of helpful tools that make your web site more effective in terms of getting your content published and indexed by search engines, promoting visitor engagement, 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 could also be powered by WordPress.

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 something similarly built to a smaller budget if required?

Is My Site WordPress?

Do you need to know if a website uses WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to this page because you’ve heard or read about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on the WordPress software, 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 a number of ways to tell if sites are built with WordPress:

Search Your Source Code

If you know how to bring up 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 page source code in Firefox

(Viewing 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 …

How To View Page Source Code In Firefox

First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.

After the source code of the site loads on your screen, you can search for words like “wp-content” either by visually scanning the code …

Is My Website WordPress?

Or use your browser’s “Find” function …

Use the Firefox browser 'Find' function

(Using the Firefox browser ‘Find’ function)

This will tell you if the site was built using WordPress or not.

Note: If you cannot find “wp-content” within the page source code, it doesn’t mean that the site you’re looking at is not a WordPress site.

Viewing The Page Source Code In Firefox

There are other ways to find out if a site was built using WordPress, as we will soon discuss.

As the focus of this article is to help non “techies”, however, below you will find a number of easier ways 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 most logical thing to do, some website development companies, for whatever reason, may build 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 CMS application is driving it, just ask your webmaster or whoever built your site if the site has been built using WordPress.

That was simple, 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 and want to know if it was built with WordPress?

Check Below The Footer

If the site uses a WordPress theme and the site templates have not been customized, you can often see a “Proudly powered by WordPress” message displayed below the footer section …

Proudly Powered by WordPress - site footer

(Proudly Powered by WordPress)

If these simple methods haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of identifying WordPress sites …

Tools That Can Tell You If A Website Runs On WordPress

Here are a couple of tools that will tell you if a website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …

Is It WP

Is It WordPress?

(Is It WordPress? – WordPress Site Checker)

Is It WP is a free tool that can tell you very quickly if a website runs on WordPress or not.

Using this tool is really quite easy. Just type the URL of the site into the search field and click the button next to it.

The tool will then go through the URL 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 …

Is It WordPress? - WP Website Checking Tool

If the site is not powered by WordPress, you will get a message like the one shown below …

IsItWP.com - WordPress Checking Tool

To use this tool, go here:

Advanced WP Theme Checker by Satori

WordPress Theme Detector

(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

(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

(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

(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

(This website is not WordPress)

You can try the Detector yourself by visiting this link:

WordPress Theme Detector

Wappalyzer

Wappalyzer

(Wappalyzer – Extension For Firefox / Chrome Web Browser)

If you browse the net using either the Firefox or Chrome web browsers and would like to be able to see if the sites that you are visiting are powered by WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a useful extension to add to your browser.

Wappalyzer tells you what type of 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.”

It’s also very easy to install.

Wappalyzer - Browser Extension (Firefox / Chrome)

After installing the Wappalyzer add-on on your browser, icons will display in your browser, next to the site URL allowing you to see which software is being used by the sites you are visiting …

Wappalyzer - Extension For Firefox & Chrome Browser

If the WordPress icon shows up on your browser menu (as shown in the screen shot above), then the site has been built with WordPress.

A WordPress site!

(A WordPress site!)

Visit the website here:

SpyBar

SpyBar - Browser Addon For WordPress

(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 – 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 – 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

(Search WordPress sites by categories and location)

To download or learn more about Plugin Sniper, go here:

We hope you have found the above information useful.

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Originally published as Does Your Website Run On WordPress? How To Tell.