Why the need to search and replace text in WordPress?
Migrating your website to a new domain
If you’ve changed the domain of your website, it’s faster to use search and replace, instead of changing the domain in your database.
Fixing Errors
This is used for fixing typos when you accidentally misspell a word in your posts or pages or grammatical errors. It’s just faster than checking all the posts and pages and replacing all the errors.
Content Updates
If you need to update certain parts of your content, like contact information or product names, especially if you’re re-branding, this is the fastest way to do it.
SEO Optimization
If you need to replace your meta titles, descriptions, and keywords or phrases, especially if you have a lot of posts or pages, doing search and replace will really help to improve your website’s search engine optimization (SEO).
Recommended Plugin:
How to Install Better Search Replace Plugin?
1. In your Dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New Plugin
2. Search for better search replace
3. Install and then Activate the plugin
How to use the Better Search Replace plugin?
1. Add the text that your need to be replaced in the Search for field
2. Add the text that you need it replaced to on the Replace with field
3. Select the tables where you need to replace the text, select all the tables when migrating to a new website or changes for SEO.
4. At first, there will be a dry run that the plugin recommends, if you think the dry run is correct, remove the check on the Run as dry run field then click on the Run Search/Replace button.
IMPORTANT:
Make a backup before using this plugin!
So, why the need to search and replace text in WordPress?
This will make your life easier! Instead of manually updating posts and pages, which is really time-consuming and error-prone, most specifically on large websites.
Just make sure to create a backup of your database, or well, your whole site before you start, and test the search and replace on a staging site before you make any changes to your live site.