Performing a WordPress search and replace in the database is essential for efficiently updating URLs, text, or content across your site, especially after domain changes, migrations, or content updates.
For users who are not familiar with programming, this approach is perfect. Without having to touch a single line of code, you may perform a search and replace operation as often as necessary with a plugin.
Better Search Replace is one of the greatest WordPress plugins for this, and we will utilise it in this article.
There are many helpful features in Better Search Replace that can help you manage the database in WordPress. In addition to search and replace, some of its features are database import capabilities and the ability to create backups.
Let us follow the procedure:
- Log in to WordPress dashboard.
- Select the “Plugins” section and click on the “Add New Plugin” sub-option.
- Search for the plugin “Better Search Replace” and install it.
- Activate it.
- Select the “Tools” option from the main dashboard and click on the “Better Search Replace” sub-option.
- Select the default “Search/Replace” tab and fill in the information as below:
- “Search for” needs to contain the term or phrase you wish to modify.
- The term or phrase that will be used in place of the original should be entered under “Replace with.”
- The “Select tables” function allows you to select the database tables you wish to edit. You may select multiple tables with Ctrl-Click for Windows or Cmd-Click for Mac.
- Additional settings:
- Case-Insensitive: By default, searches are case-sensitive. You can tick the little box to indicate that you want to select this option.
- Replace GUIDs: All database columns labeled “guid” will be skipped if they are not checked.
- Run as dry run: If you check, the database won’t be altered, enabling you to preview the outcomes.
- Once finished with the settings, click “Run Search/Replace.”
- The plugin will modify your database right away if you don’t select the dry run option.
This way, you can use a plugin to perform a search and replace in the WordPress database. If you run into any issues, don’t hesitate to contact our support team.
Ready to dive deeper into database management? Learn How to create a table in PhpMyAdmin