How to quickly identify a Blogger or Wordpress site?

Do you sometimes wonder if a website is running Wordpress?

There are many Content Management Systems. The last stats I saw had about 1/3 of the websites running WordPress. There are some excellent add-ins that will tell you all sorts of information about a website. I'll cover those at some later date. However, sometimes you want to know if the website is Wordpress without going to the trouble of installing a plug-in. There are reasons you might not want to install an add-in. For example, maybe you are using a restricted PC, or someone else's PC.

Here's a quick way to see if a website is running WordPress.

If you're viewing a website and wonder if its a Wordpress site or a Blogger site, and don't want to take time to load an extension, here's a easy way to make that identification.

1) Right-click on an image on the web page.

2) Choose "Copy Image Address".

This puts the URL of the image into the clipboard buffer. Now, just paste the URL into notepad, or even faster, paste the image URL into the browser's address bar.

3) Examine the URL

What does a WordPress image URL look like?

A blog hosted by WordPress will be storing its images in a "\wp-content\uploads\" folder. So, if you see this in the destination URL you can confident you are dealing with a WordPress site. (Like all rules-of-thumb, there are exceptions, but this will be true more often than not.

What does a Blogger image URL look like?

Blogger will host its images on a blogspot server. If you see "blogspot" in the URL you can pretty certain you are dealing with a Blogger website.

Once upon a time, blogger.com websites had ".blogspot.com" in the URL. This has not been true for many years. Blogger allows for custom domains, but Blogger does not change the underlying architecture. Images are hosted on a blogspot server, and examining the URL for the image will give this away.

The WordPress Example

I ran a search for "sloppy joe recipes" and located an example of a WordPress and Blogger site.

Is TheChunkyChef.com a Wordpress site? Let's find out.

Right-click on the image and select "copy image address". This puts the URL in the clipboard, but we need to be able to see it. One could use notepad, or even faster, just paste it in the browser's address bar.

Screenshot of right-clicking image to select 'copy image address'.

Next, one examines the URL of the image. Wordpress images are stored in a 'wp-content/uploads/' folder. This text reveals that the 'thechunkychef.com' is a WordPress site. Similarly, Blogger has a telltale as well. Images which are uploaded to a Google Blogger website will show up as being hosted on a blogspot domain.

Where the Image is Hosted Reveals Whether the Site is Google Blogger or Wordpress

Is mizhelenscountrycottage.com a Blogger or a WordPress site?

Screenshot showing right-clicking on image to select 'Copy image address'.

First, we'll load the site and then right-click on an image. Select "Copy image address" to put the URL in the clipboard.

Next, we will need to paste this URL somewhere so we can examine it. While I could have used notepad.exe, its a few less steps to simply paste the URL into the browser's address bar. No need to press enter, we don't want to actually load the image, just look at the image's link address.

In this case, the URL for an image hosted on the Google Blogger service will have a hosting domain of "[some number].bp.blogspot.com". This is a very strong clue that the site in question is a Google Blogger website. (I suppose an image hosted on Google Drive might be shared by a similar URL, but I have not tested this.)

Summary

When you need to quickly determine if a website is WordPress or Blogger, examine the URL to a static image. If the image is on a "blogspot.com" domain, it is a blogger site. If the image's URL contains "\wp-content\uploads" in the path, it is a WordPress site.