Once you have decided to build a website, one of the difficult tasks will be to select a design template. It will take time and research to figure out what type of theme or template will suit your requirements and make your website more attractive. The best way to select a theme is to browse through similar niche websites and see what themes and templates they are using. It will help you in deciding what you are looking for. When talking about WordPress themes, we know there are thousands of them available in the market for each niche.
Web development professionals and non-tech entrepreneurs rely on WordPress for quick website development. The first step is to go through your competitors’ websites and rate them according to the theme designs that impress you the most. Once you have picked a theme, use this article as a guide to find out which WordPress theme and plugins the website is using so you can build yours in the similar fashion.
There are two important questions you will have to find answers for:
- Which Content Management System (CMS) is the website using?
- Which WordPress theme and plugins it is using?
How to find which CMS a website is using
You don’t have to do any code diggings for this one, as there are plenty of online tools that can help you find out the answer. I am sharing some of the best online CMS detector websites here:
WhatCMS.org
WhatCMS is a famous online CMS detector which can detect 142 different CMS applications and their services. If you find a website which goes undetected through their system, they ask you to send the address of that website, so they can include every new CMS in their system.
IsItWP.com
This website is closely working with WordPress and can detect a lot of different types of information about WordPress based websites. You can get theme, plugins, hosting, and other information through this website by just entering a URL in the search bar.
Allora.io
Allora is another famous company in the market that knows over 2200+ technologies and can easily detect the CMS of a website. It also gives recommendations based on popular themes and plugins. Its list is dynamically updated and maintained, enabling you to easily look for these themes and plugins for your website.
OnlineWebTool.com
This is not just a CMS detector but it also offers a complete set of tools for themes, web stats and compressions. I recommend you to bookmark this website as it can help you do handy stuff and analyze competitors’ websites as well.
Wappalyzer (a chrome extension)
If you don’t want to go to another website and paste the URL to find about the themes and plugins, this chrome extension is for you. It will enable you to see the information of every website right on your extensions bar.
So now that you know what CMS a website is using, let’s dig a little more to find out about the themes and plugins.
How to find which WordPress theme and plugins a website is using
Some of the tools mentioned above can also help you find what WordPress theme and plugins a website is using. Here is a list of some more websites that are more specific to WordPress.
WP Theme Detector
Just copy paste the URL of the website you like on WP Theme Detector and it will provide you complete details about WordPress theme and plugins. You can also see the best themes and plugins, along with top theme providers.
Built With
Built With is more technical, as it goes deeper into a website and shares a complete technology stack working behind it. It provides information regarding web server, SSL certificates, hosting provider and many more.
Scan WP
Scan WP gives you complete website information. It also shows additional information about the plugins as well as the percentage of the WordPress website using each plugin. Scan WP also shows keywords and recent traffic results of that website.
What WP Theme Is That
This website not only detects the WordPress theme of a website but also shows the theme used by its child theme as well, if there is any. Moreover, you will also get complete information about its plugins.
Web Tech Detector
This is another good website that not only provides information regarding the CMS, themes and plugins but also about the stats of top themes and plugins.
Some Chrome extensions to detect WordPress themes and plugins
Here is a list of some helpful chrome extensions that will get websites information right on your browser. They are helpful for developers who want to keep an eye on every website and need it fast.
Chrome Sniffer Plus
Chrome Sniffer Plus runs on browsing websites and this extension can sniff JavaScript, WordPress, Angular, phpBB, Drupal, Apache, NGINX and more. This is a must have chrome extension for every web developer.
Built With Technology Profiler
Right in front of the web address in the address bar you will see this extension’s icon. Once you click on this icon, you will see detailed information about the website opened on the current tab. You can have a look at WordPress and other CMS system information, servers, email services and more.
WPSniffer – WordPress Theme Sniffer
With WPSniffer, you can see active WordPress theme being used on a website. This is a very simple and handy tool for developers and designers to have on their list of chrome extensions.
How to Find WordPress Theme Information Manually
So you have tried all the methods above and still could not find any helpful information about a website. Let me share some tips on how you can manually find information about a website.
Have a look at the Footer
A good number of web developers don’t even bother to go to the footer and change the footer text and links. And if they have not, you can see the theme name and its developer’s information right in the footer.
Check out Page Source
Right click on the page and select the “View Page Source” option.
An HTML file will open with all the links and CSS information in it.
You can find the theme name in the link tag <link> tag as well.
Find the CSS Style file linked in this page. About 99% of WordPress websites will have this file named as style.css, located within a directory “themes”, and in a subdirectory called “wp-content”. Just do a quick search with CTRL+F and type “style.css”.
Once you are in the style.css file, you can easily view the name of the theme. Sometimes, you may have to search a little in this file, but once you find the theme name, you can simply Google it.
Conclusion
Knowing is everything. This is why you must know what your competitor is using. I hope you can now find the theme used by your favorite website. I recommend going through some of your mostly visited websites and check what WordPress themes and plugins they are using. If you are planning to start a website similar to the ones you like, now you have everything you need to explore these websites. I have covered the best online and browser based tools that can help you find the basic and detailed information about a website.