How to figure out what websites are built with

Every so often I’ll get a random tech question from a graphic designer friend.
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This week she texted me about a web design she wanted to replicate – “hey, I know you know how to scan the developer code. Is this site custom or a template?”
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It’s not magic to find out how things are made.
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Truth is, (almost) everything’s hidden in plain site – and it’s actually somewhat hard to hide what someone’s using to create their site (or course or e-commerce store).
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The simple tool that helps you figure out what was used to build a website

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​First, go to https://builtwith.com and enter in the website you want to know more about. ​
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If the site isn’t blocked, you’ll be able to find out everything from where they host their site, to what platform they’re using, to their newsletter software and what they’re using to measure metrics. While there’s a few sites that don’t give up the tech stack goods, usually you’ll be able to see exactly what they’ve got going on under the hood.
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How to find out what a website is built with by looking under the hood

Now if you can’t use the built with tool (or if you want more detailed info), you can do the following.
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In your browser (I use Google Chrome), go to View > Developer > View Source.​
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Doing this will bring up a page that looks like a lot of random code (it’s actually markup language – this is what specifies the structure and formatting of a web page).
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To figure out what platform or theme something is using, there’s a few things I look for.
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First, I fire up CMD + F (this is the shortcut for “find” on a mac) and search for “wordpress” – if you see that (or if you see the phrase “wp-content”) it’s a WordPress site.
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Next, to find the theme that someone is using, I search for the word “themes.” Now if it’s a custom theme, the theme author will often rename the theme (I usually name mine as the name of the client plus the year created).
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​(You can also use this WordPress specific tool if you don’t want to play hide and seek searching through the source for the theme – https://whatwpthemeisthat.com.)
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Now, what if it’s NOT a WordPress site? Here’s what to look for (doing the same view source technique). In general, you just need to look for multiple instances of the platform word.
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For Shopify – search for the word “shopify”
​For Squarespace – search for the word “squarespace”
For Framer – search for “made in framer”
​For Webflow – search for the word “webflow”
​For Kajabi – search for the word “kajabi”
​For Showit – search for the word “showit” – to note: Showit sites use WordPress for the blog back-end, so you may see WordPress listed in the source code. In that case, look for “showit” to confirm that it is a Showit site.
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How do you find out who created, designed or developed the website?

Maybe you want to hire the person (or agency) who built the website.

1. Look in the footer (the very bottom of the website) for “designed by” or a link named “site credits” for a link to the agency or designer.
2. If there aren’t any site credits, view source and search for “style.css” – often the designer will comment in the code with their info.
3. Use the builtwith.com tool mentioned above – sometimes you’ll see an “agency” listing with the relevant info.
4. Google the site name plus “designer” or “portfolio” – often the designer will put the site in their portfolio.

What is a website stack?

To build a website, you often need to use a bunch of software tools and services. A website stack is the collection of those tools, systems, servers and programming languages that work together to build the site.

What’s the best way to build a WordPress website?

These are the tools I use to build my custom WordPress sites. This tech stack is ideal for designers and small business owners who want to update and manage their own WordPress website.

• Website Theme – Astra. I’ve been using Astra as my base theme for the last few years. It’s one of the most popular WordPress themes for good reason – it integrates easily with the most popular page builders, is stable and kept up-to-date.
• Page Builder – Beaver Builder. WordPress on it’s own can be hard to create unique, easy-to-update page layouts. I’ve used Beaver Builder to create hundreds of websites. It’s stable, easy-to-use and makes it easy to create beautiful website pages and layouts that designers and clients can update and manage themselves.
• Ultimate Addons for Beaver Builder – This plugin “adds-on” extra features to Beaver Builder and gives you even more tools to create custom designed pages – perfect for sales pages and unique layouts.
• Webhost – Siteground. I love the speed and ease of using Siteground to host fast-loading WordPress websites. Plus it’s super easy to create a “staging” or test site to design your work before it goes live.