Previously, a website was thought of as a simple directory of pages linked by hyperlinks. Now it is a full-fledged independent software which offers a huge number of interesting services and applications, provides users with the ability to communicate with each other and tracks all their actions on the pages.
To create and maintain such sites, content management systems are used, the interface of which allows you to quickly add new material to a web resource or make changes to an already published one. Also, CMS are engaged in solving functional, administrative and managerial tasks.
A content management system is an application that is installed on a hosting. It has two main functions.
First, the CMS shows users the content of the pages of the website. Their content is generated from a database.
Secondly, the management system helps the owners of Internet resources to manage the content of the site without special skills and abilities.
Common misconceptions
Very often, having seen an interesting web resource, its visitor wonders how to determine which CMS the site is made on. Functionality, structure and outer shell very often say nothing about the engine on which the project was implemented.
Free and commercial platforms are developing and updating very quickly, changing their structure, organization and design.
How to determine the CMS of a site: basic methods
There are many ways to find out which content management system was used to create a web resource. Let's consider only those methods that will be understandable to average PC users.
You can determine the CMS of the site by looking source Internet pages using special online services or by installing a browser extension.
Free online services
This method involves the use of special purpose services to determine the engine on which the web project is implemented.
This method is the simplest and most understandable for ordinary people. You just need to find the appropriate resource in search engine, go to it official page and in the input window type the address of the project that interests you.
That's all, you can enjoy the result!
Viewing the source code of web pages
Content management systems differ from each other in many parameters, structure, and most importantly - the actual address of the entrance to the control panel.
To determine the CMS, while in the browser, press F8 or use the key combination Ctrl + U.
WordPress is the most popular engine and is completely free. Its distinctive feature is the presence of a wp-incudes directory with scripts, as well as a wp-content folder with images, plugins, themes and other design elements. In addition, the content management system can be recognized by meta name = "generator", it is this tag that is defining.
Joomla - at least popular system content management. You can identify the CMS by the presence of the templates directory with templates. All news published on the site under this engine, by default, point to the author Administrator.
CMS Drupal also has its own distinctive feature: icons, pictures, .css files and other data are located in the files and misc directories. This flexible engine is great for implementing a social networking project.
The DLE content management system uses the meta name = "generator" tag, in which you can find a hyperlink to the developer's official website and the name of the engine itself. Scripts in this CMS are usually connected through the engine folder.
The NetCat CMS can be identified by the presence of the netcat catalog of images.
MaxsiteCMS was created by domestic programmers. The content management system is distributed free of charge. Having found a directory named maxsite in the structure, we can safely say that this particular engine is used.
Installing a dedicated browser extension
Consider another simple and quick method how to identify the website engine. It does not require any special skills or unnecessary actions from the PC user. But it also does not help in all cases.
For all browsers, special add-ons have been developed - extensions that, working in automatic mode, determine which content management system is used by a particular project.
For Firefox browser you can install a plugin called RDS Bar.
Initially, it was used only by SEO-optimizers, so it provides a huge number of features that are not even worth discussing in this review. But among other features, the plugin determines the site's engine. You can activate this option in the add-ons panel.
Wappalyzer is a handy and informative plugin that can also be used to define CMS. It displays useful data about the site in graphical form.
Now you know the most simple ways how to determine which CMS a site is using. If the above methods did not help you to reconnoitre anything, it means that the administrator did a good job to hide the belonging of the resource to any of the engines.
It is quite difficult to choose an engine for a future web project, since it is not at first glance that you can understand significant differences different options... It is difficult for a layman to immediately determine the functionality that cannot be implemented using one or another CMS. Relying on the opinion of someone from the outside is also not worth it, since in this case personal preferences most often play a role. So, some work exclusively with Joomla or Drupal, others consider them "kindergarten". In any case, if it is necessary to determine the site engine, then it is better to leave this choice to a specialist who will develop it.
In no case should you settle for a "self-written" engine, only if you don't write it yourself, having sufficient qualifications. A web project without a CMS is also not best idea... If you need to do such work personally, then you need care and prudence. It's a shame to miscalculate with this moment at the beginning of the project, and in the future to run into the impossibility of implementation certain function... The information is likely to be useful to novice developers of electronic resources.
The price of the issue
For developers, the important question is on which engine the site is paid or not. The conclusion can be made as follows - on a free basis, you can create an electronic resource good level... You need to spend money on CMS only when the options free versions not enough to implement the project. But many aspiring info business people or webmasters succumb to sellers' persuasion, which looks very persuasive. Lure methods include the following suggestions:
- Extended functional range. This is the only reason why you should agree to such an offer. The rest is just an attempt to play on human trust.
- Search engines are more inclined towards sites with a paid CMS. Others they classify as suspicious and give out in the search last. This is actually a myth.
- All reputable companies work only with paid products.
- The closed code of paid engines and the lack of proper security for others.
- To determine the site engine, you do not need to focus solely on the final cost of the project. The main criterion should be the ability to implement ideas.
WordPress
To decide on which engine the site will work, it is worth understanding the peculiarity of each of the options. First on the list of preferred CMSs is WordPress as it is the most basic product. The content management system is widespread due to its ease of use. Downloading and working with it is absolutely free.
This engine is popular with both developers and users of electronic resources. The benefits of WordPress include good manageability, optimization, and a wide variety of plugin options.
For learning how to create websites, WordPress is just right for you. Special knowledge is not required to work with the system. With the help of this CMS, simple information portals, blogs and even online stores are being developed.
Experienced experts give the following advice - before you start developing some functionality, you should look for it in finished form, which will greatly facilitate the work.
From the side search engine optimization WordPress is your best bet.
Drupal
This CMS, like the previous one, works for free. The system includes a huge number of software modules... Thanks to her, you can learn how to independently create pages that will have the most different parameters... The engine has a large number of options, settings include detailed functions... Drupal is somewhat more complex than WordPress, but you don't have to be a programmer to work with this CMS. Drupal is at a good level in terms of SEO optimization.
This engine is used by many corporate electronic resources... The development of an engine for an online store website with this CMS will be quite simple, and even interesting. The system is also suitable for demonstrating a wide range of large quantity positions.
Joomla
If you ask the developers of various projects which one is better, then many will point to Joomla, on the basis of which eBay, Orange and IKEA are created. Since the system has a wide range of additions, it can be used to implement almost any project - from business cards to information portals... Moreover, this can be done simply and in a short time.
But this engine is not flexible, it is difficult to go beyond the provided plugins. Optimization specialists scold this CMS for excessive duplicates and information content... But with the right approach a site with such an engine can be well received by search engines.
Bitrix
The Bitrix engine is at the heart of many commercial projects... Its advantage is good interconnection with the 1C configuration. In addition, the system includes several ready-made developments for different types electronic resources.
The implementation of any project with the help of Bitrix will cost more than with previous options... License for the most available version this engine costs about twenty-five thousand rubles. All architectural solutions using this database have high cost... Any specialist for work on this CMS will require a higher fee compared to other systems.
The engine needs huge amount resources, it is very slow, security is also poor. Duplication of pages and information is allowed.
But all aspects of SEO promotion are included in the options of the content management system, which can independently analyze search queries, key density, entry and entry points, server response headers.
Although the engine is quite profitable and profitable, high price, resource intensity and complexity of work scare away developers.
Industrial espionage
How to find out the site engine of the Internet resource you like? There are situations when someone else's development is taken as a basis, and not their own ideas. Perhaps, having accidentally seen a portal, store or blog, a person realizes that he has found a worthy development.
You can understand how to find out the site's engine using the following methods:
- Viewing the HTML code of the required page in the browser. After the word content, the name of the platform is indicated.
- Viewing the login address admin panel.
- Analysis of the structure of the robots.txt file. These can be folders, files, and file addresses.
- Use of online services.
- Installing a special browser add-on.
If you use any of these methods, the question of how to find out the site engine will not cause any difficulties.
Change CMS
Developers who are not satisfied with the ability to implement the necessary functions are trying to move the site to another engine. But the likelihood of losing positions stops many from such innovations. The problem can be easily solved. If possible, you should keep the old URLs or use a 301 redirect. If you need to change the engine of a resource with a large volume, then it would be useful to use the "404 error". Leave the text, titles, and mega tags unchanged.
The transfer process is no less laborious than the creation itself new platform... By doing this action you need to be extremely careful in order to maintain positions in the SERP.
Hello dear readers of the blog site! Probably most of you are aware that modern projects the network uses special CMS programs(content management systems), colloquially referred to as engines.
In this particular case, we are able to determine which engine the site is running on, since the presence of the code here known extension Yoast SEO does not give reason to doubt the correctness of the conclusions. This is, of course, WordPress.
Another way that you can determine which CMS is present on the site is by examining the content of the robots.txt () file, which is usually located in the root folder and has the following URL:
Site.ru/robots.txt
Here are examples of robots.txt for sites operated by the two most popular platforms (WordPress and Joomla):
In the screenshot, the directories that are specific to these content management systems are highlighted in green and red, so if they are available, you can always find out the engine that is used.
The next method is not complete for checking the CMS of the site, it only helps to confirm the correctness of the conclusion made. To do this, try going to the login page of the control panel corresponding to a specific CMS:
After you have learned the type of the engine by any method, you can check the correctness of your research by using the above links, just do not forget to substitute the real domain instead of site.ru (in everything about domain names).
But it’s not that simple. For example, when you try to log into your Drupal admin panel, you may receive a 403 (login denied) error page. On this CMS, in order to increase security, the administrator has the ability to hide the login form for certain user groups.
Based on the above, we can say that independent CMS definition it works quite well, although sometimes it is not such an easy task as it seems at first glance. This circumstance is due to the fact that on the pages with the source code you will not always find necessary information since it may be missing.
In addition, a web page with an entrance to the admin panel can be calculated, if only you go to well-known and popular engines. But the site can work on some rare or even self-written engine, sharpened for a specific project.
Therefore, below we will consider methods that very effectively complement manual check and any more or less savvy user can do it. Although the above information is quite suitable for overall development and practical use.
Definition of CMS site online - services 2ip.ru and iTrack
Now let's analyze those online services that quite accurately determine which CMS the tested web resource is running on.
1. 2ip.ru... Go to this page of this multifunctional resource. Enter the IP address () or URL of the website you want to check in the line:
Press the button "Learn" and after some (very short) time you will receive the resulting information:
The answer is obvious: the site is powered by Drupal. The 2ip.ru database contains almost 70 different systems content management, so the chances are very high that you will get a specific result.
2. iTrack... To find out the site engine online, visit a specialized service of this project where you enter the URL and enter verification code, or captcha (), and then press blue button activation of the check (as you can see, the base consists of more than 50 CMS, which is quite a decent amount):
After completing the process, you get a result like this:
In addition to the actual specific answer to your request, you will have access to accompanying data in the form of a list of recently checked websites and an offer to order a study, which you can use, if, of course, you are interested in it.
Defining the engine using the Wappalyzer plugin
Well, in conclusion, we will try to use for CMS checks resource software, or rather, a very interesting extension Wappalyzer, which can be installed in popular browsers Chrome and Mazilla, where it performs the task with brilliance.
You can learn more about the overviews of the add-ons for the specified web browsers and the installation process, etc. For example, let me briefly describe the work of the Wappalizer in Google Chrome, since it is one of the most popular web browsers.
Go to the corresponding web page of the Chrome Web Store and click the "Install" button. After the installation is complete, you will be redirected to the developers home page, where a message will appear that the plugin has been successfully installed.
Now you can use it. To do this, simply go to the page of the tested resource, as a result of which in the right upper corner chrome window, an icon will materialize, symbolizing the CMS that this site is under control:
In addition to basic information (type of engine), we get some more data that can be useful: for example, social media widgets posted on this resource, version Nginx server and PHP language, scripts, including analytics services, etc.
Similarly, you can download and install the Wappalyzer extension from the official Firefox page. Its use in Mozilla is similar to the process just discussed for Chromium, although there are some nuances.
What is the most efficient engine detection method?
In the final part of this post, I would like to summarize today's material a little and dot the i's in terms of priorities for using one or another option for checking the site's engine. First identify the main disadvantages of each method:
- Self-checking against the source code page. It is not always possible to get data about the CMS by the generator meta tag and active plugins. Although sophisticated users, despite this, can still extract the necessary information from the HTML code by other parameters, it still takes time, and for beginners, the task is complicated by a lack of experience;
- Use of online services. The main disadvantage is the absence in the database desired system management (rare or self-written);
- The use of Wappalyzer is the lack of installation in most browsers (except for the most popular Chrome and Mozilla).
To visually test the situation, let's try to find out on which engine the well-known ubuntu.ru project operates. First, let's use the online service iTrack. The result will be negative, that is, no CMS from the database is present:
The same result is on another resource that I mentioned today, that is, 2ip.ru. In this case, the disadvantage inherent in online resources has just affected - the lack of an engine in the database. But Wappalyzer calmly gave information on the search query:
In short, DokuWiki is a wiki engine that is used to create and manipulate any kind of documentation. An independent study gave exactly the same result:
Based on this simple test, we can conclude: for the followers of Chrome and Firefox the best option is the Vappalizer, the rest can use other methods in a complex way or switch to the above-named browsers, which, by the way, have many advantages, especially for Chrome. Well, as usual, a video will supplement the material.
Probably, many Internet users know that various ready-made tools are used to create websites. They are called engines or CMS. How to determine which engine is used on the site, and why it is needed, will be discussed later in our article.
What is a site engine and what is it for?
The site engine is automated facility for control and configuration. In particular, many CMSs allow you to change appearance anything by applying the template, add new content, menu, whole page or section.
Among the most famous are WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, domestic Bitrix and many others.
How to find out the site engine
The engine can be recognized in several ways:
- by manually analyzing the page;
- determined by typical characteristics;
- using online services.
To analyze the site using the available tools, you need to open the source code of the page. A short run through the lines can provide a lot of useful information.
Almost every site has in the body of its code meta tag name named generator. It may or may not include a content management system. It all depends on whether the portal administrator has taken a means of concealment.
You can also find out the site engine from lines with CSS and JavaScript. The paths to the files of styles and scripts can contain parts of the standard CMS locations. For example, typical WordPress ones consist of keywords: wp-content.
You can find out which engine the site is on by looking at the robots.txt file. It is designed to deny visits certain pages search engines... Therefore, it may contain standard paths for some CMS. Naturally, you need to know the structure of files and folders of the most popular engines.
The external on the page can also help to recognize the site's engine. If the CMS does not use third-party solutions to form links, then, by default, they may look like this:
- / p = 501- the current view of the link for WordPress;
- /index.php?option=com_content ... - given template used in Joomla by default;
- page/ page_name - this is how the URL looks like in MaxSite.
To find out the site engine will help the method with the substitution of the addresses of the admin panels of well-known CMS. It is worth trying to substitute the following paths for the domain:
- wp-admin- WordPress admin panel;
- administrator- this address is used by Joomla;
- admin- and this one belongs to MaxSite.
Scanning server responses can also help you find out which engine the site is on. This can be done using special tools. In the response from the server we are interested in It may contain a field with the value X-Powered-CMS.
It makes sense to view the saved cookies of the site as well. For this you may also need special means called sniffers. Among the cookie strings, you can find parts of the names of popular CMS, for example, wp or umicms.
Online services
The first of the tools is Itrack. In its base, it has the characteristics of more than 50 content management tools in order to find out the engine of a site online. It is enough to visit the site, enter the name of the desired domain, captcha and click "Check". After a while, the service will scan the specified site and issue its verdict. And if there is a CMS, then it will be displayed.
Another good multifunctional service for finding out the site engine online, - 2ip. Here the address of the scanned resource is entered and the "Learn" button is pressed. The system will iterate over all known CMS, displaying them one by one. And as soon as it comes across a matching one, it will notify about it.
Why you might need to check the site engine
Such information will always be useful to an attacker-hacker. How can he use it? Very simple. All content controls are written by humans. Accordingly, there may be errors in projects and sites. Some are corrected very quickly, some remain. Knowing typical mistakes a specific CMS and being sure that it is exactly what is installed on the attacked site, a hacker can use various approaches using vulnerabilities and exploits.
Also, the type of engine may be needed by a web programmer who wants to create about the same site for himself or a customer. Or maybe the same developer wants to see how easy it is for a hacker to identify the CMS on his site.
Hiding engine information
As you can see, by hiding the data about which CMS is used, you can additionally secure your site from unauthorized access as a result hacker attack... In fact, many articles on the Internet, on forums and in various instructions are devoted to this. There is no universal formula for hiding the engine type for all CMS at once. Each will have to act differently.
For example, Joomla generates a Generator tag. This means that you need to correct the index.php file of the current template. You need to add the line to itsetGenerator ('')?> somewhere between other meta tags.
It is very difficult to manually change the display of web page addresses. But there is already ready-made solutions, something like JoomSEF. They generate links based on the names of the materials, and the appearance address bar becomes more readable and not different from most sites.
Also Joomla site can be recognized by the famous icon in the browser header. It is called favicon.ico and is located in the root of the site or the folder of the current template.
Very often CMS is defined by standard page 404 error message. It is recommended to change it immediately after setup and configuration.
Conclusion
Before you find out which engine the site uses, you will first have to search the Internet for data on what typical signs and parameters are in certain CMS. Well, or contact online sites. And in order to hide the use of a content management system on your resource with your own hands, you still have to master the basics of PHP and HTML. Although even here on all known CMS there are ready-made solutions in the form of plugins, modules and components. Many of which, by the way, also reduce the site's resistance to attacks. It is up to the web developer to decide which approach to take.
Sometimes it becomes necessary to define the engine of a third-party site. The reasons for this may be different, for example, you liked a site and want to do the same. Determining the site engine is very easy, because all popular CMS are open source.
Of course, you don't have to dig into the site's source code. For this purpose, there are various online services, browser extensions and programs. About them today and there will be a speech in this article.
Online services for determining the engine (CMS) of the site
2ip.ru
A service that allows you to determine the CMS of the site. The service can identify 68 of the most famous engines. You just enter the site domain and start scanning. The service searches in the source code for signs of one of the CMS that is in the database. If none of the signs is found, then the site does not work on a CMS or works on a very rare engine.
Another site that defines the engine. Has in its database more than 50 different CMS. The principle of operation is similar to the previous one - you enter the site address, it is scanned for the presence of CMS signs, and the result is displayed.
The next service in turn scans the source code of the site and, based on the data received, determines: the use of analytics scripts, programming languages, a Web server, a monetization system, and much more.
Of course, the service is only able to detect the most common scripts. For example, for my blog, he saw scripts Google adsense, but Rotaban could not identify. Nevertheless, I really like the service.
xtoolza.info
Another service allows you to perform batch check of CMS. It is very convenient when you need to make bulk check CMS sites. (Service no longer works).
Browser extensions that define the site engine
There are browser extensions to help you identify the site's engine. I most often use Google chrome as a working browser and chrome extension Sniffer Plus.
After installing the extension, an icon will appear next to the browser line, by clicking on which, you can see which engine, web server and scripts the site uses.
Site engine detection programs
Among the programs for determining the site engine, the best is A-Parser... The program is paid and not cheap, but its capabilities are impressive:
- Definition of over 600 CMS;
- Monitoring the position of any site in search engines;
- Collection of link bases for XRumer, A-Poster, AllSubmitter, ZennoPoster;
- Collection arbitrary information from any sites (for example, phones, e-mail,
- messages from forums, announcements, etc.);
- Backlink tracking;
- Collecting and evaluating keywords;
- Parsing all kinds of data from search engines;
- Parsing data from VKontakte, Instagram, RSS, YouTube;
- Parsing the structure of sites;
Of course, this program is hardly suitable for an ordinary blogger, he simply does not need most of its functions. It is more for SEO agencies.
Well, for an ordinary blogger like me, online services will be enough to determine the site's engine.
