How to tell if a site is created in Webflow

How can I tell, from the source code, if a site is created in Webflow?

What should I be looking for?

Thanks,

Al

hi

  1. open the website you want to check
  2. press ctrl + f to open the search box
  3. search for “data-wf-page”
  4. if it is a webflow domain the search will find a tag at the top that reads "<html data-wf-domain=" ........" data-wf-page=".......">

Thanks.

Is that only for sites hosted at Webflow?

What if it’s not hosted but just created in Webflow?

Al

sometimes people leave that code in after they export it out of Webflow. sometimes they remove it.

You can still look through the code and look for webflow.

Or you can go to http://builtwith.com and find out what they are using

1 Like

Even if it’s not hosted with Webflow, those tags will still be there.

everything has a webflow reference
regardless if it’s hosted, published, or exported.

And technically published is the same as exported
except the site exists as a webflow 3rd level domain.

Webflow even manipulates the dom using a webflow element.

Here’s my confusion and understand that I’m a novice. I have someone telling me that they built http://www.sharefaith.com/ in Webflow. When I go to builtwith.com it says that the CMS is at Wordpress AND Webflow which I don’t understand. The only “webflow” in the source code is the name of some of the some of the css links.

My guess is that I’m being lied to and it wasn’t built in Webflow. It certainly looks like a Wordpress site, especially since there are a bunch of “widgets” listed in the builtwith.com analysis. Would I be correct?

Al

That’s not true actually. wf- can sometimes stand for webfont which is used by a lot of websites. I would look for classes like with w- like w-container, w-row, etc.

her @thesergie, you’re right!

i’ve updated what i said to search for to “data-wf-page”. or as you said, any of the other classes you mentioned.

If they say they used Webflow, could it be they ment for a few “Sections” designed in Webflow?

i just took a look at the website and as sergie has pointed out - if the code has classes using w- like w-container, w-row, etc it was probably built in webflow. although saying that, there is nothing stopping someone naming a class w-container or w-row so it’s not fr certain…

this website http://www.sharefaith.com/ has w- elements so it looks like some of it was built in webflow - but then exported to another CMS

i think! there are people on this forum who know more about this me… @Revolution

Notice the domain redirects to

which I believe is jsp - java server pages.

The site doesn’t appear to be Webflow

  • unless I’m not looking at the correct page.

There may be “some pages” developed in Webflow

  • you don’t have to build and entire site in Webflow.

As @Koen mentioned: Did you hire someone to built “a few pages”… “a section / portion” ?

Note that “w-nav” is the way Webflow references a Navbar

(my site)

and navbar is how Bootstrap references it

(your site)


This is how Webflow references the HTML tab

(my site)

and this how Bootstrap references it

(your site)


And this is how Webflow references the Project JS file
(always located at the bottom of the code before the closing Body tag)

(my site)

Whereas Bootstrap doesn’t really have a project reference js file


Here’s a Bootstrap reference

(your site)


It does have some traces of Webflow here


That doesn’t mean other libraries don’t use it though…


and here’s a JSP reference


If I had to guess…

I would say
-portions of the site were developed in Webflow

  • then exported
  • and modified to use Bootstrap.

But… it is not a Wordpress site.

I don’t see any indication of Wordpress.


They’ve done a lot of work… gotta say that.

Everyone has their own opinions… but the site is “not bad”.

If the site does what you need it do… then I’m not sure what the issue is.

OTHER THAN… perhaps they said one thing and you said another ???

and even more important (IMO)… the site can only be updated by hand…

ie: outside of Webflow.

Hope this helps.

The reason I was asking about this site is that I’m actually looking for someone to sub out some sites to. I want them built in WF so I can go in afterwards and make changes.

I was contacted by someone who build sites. I told them I wanted to see sites that they’ve built in WF and sharefaith.com is one that they gave me. It just doesn’t look like a typical WF site (most seem to have a certain look to them).

that site isn’t built in Webflow. Easiest way to tell is that they are still using HTML4. Webflow produces HTML5 code. How you can tell is their doctype. HTML5’s doctype is simply <!DOCTYPE html>

3 Likes

excellent catch. I missed that.

Yes, this observation is correct. The entire page/site is custom-coded, however certain sections of the website is created with Webflow.

Here is one of the “combined” files for a section, which includes Webflow CSS:

Direct link, this includes styles for w-container, w-section, etc.:

http://www.sharefaith.com/css/homeBody.css+home,_normalize.css+home,_webflow.css+home,_sf-test-cb13afa49d8ced47d452c6161f58bef.webflow.css.pagespeed.cc.L1u3rcEjD8.css

BTW builtwith.com isn’t accurate. My website doesn’t show up there when it’s purely built with and hosted on Webflow: samliew.com Technology Profile

1 Like

Webflow sites also add <meta name=“generator” content="Webflow”> after the and <meta name=“viewport” … Though this can be removed of course.

Not really commenting something super-relevant… just handy.

If you use Chrome and install the [Wappalyzer extension]
(Wappalyzer - Technology profiler - Chrome Web Store) you can uncover some of the tech behind websites you’re visiting. Webflow CMS cannot be identified yet but you can see plugins and other tech (i.e. WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, Twitter Bootstrap, Analytics)

Handy tool to have in your taskbar.

Commenting also :wink:

A lot of these utilities look for cookies set by systems. I’m not sure if Webflow sites will do this once they are exported to plain static HTML and uploaded as I wouldn’t have thought that cookies would be present at all then so a little harder for them to figure out if it was indeed created in such an editor or not.

Mark