How to bulk edit a load of URL's in Wordpress?

Baddass · 23 Jun 2022 at 08:26

Hi everyone, looking for some advice if possible.

I have a Wordpress site with a load of external links at the moment for a certain affiliate programme. They all begin with the same URL prefix (https://www.abcde.com/ for example) but the rest of each link is different as it links to the given product. I need to bulk edit all of these links across my Wordpress site if possible, to move to a different affiliate link partner. Unfortunately the new URL structure is different so i can't simply replace the prefix section and leave the rest as it is, i need to basically remove all those links.

What i'd like to be able to do is search for all links that begin with that prefix, regardless of the rest of the URL, and replace all of them with a single URL that is the same, but from the new affiliate system.

I have tried some plugins search as "better search and replace" but they all seem to lack the ability to find any URL starting with X, they will only find literally just the text you enter and replace that. but while each of these links starts the same, they are all different overall

any suggestions or advice?

visibleman · 23 Jun 2022 at 14:39

If you've got DB access then you could do a regex replace on the anchor tags within pages/posts (forgotten the table name WP uses for posts) using regex like (https://regex101.com/r/cM8K7z/1) -

Code:

/https:\/\/www\.abcde\.com\/.+(?=")/g

Can't say i've had or tried to do this and i don't doubt there is a "proper" Wordpress solution but as i'm not a massive fan of WP this would be the sledge hammer approach i would use :cry:

Baddass · 23 Jun 2022 at 21:53

Thanks for the suggestion

visibleman · 24 Jun 2022 at 13:18

Baddass said:
Thanks for the suggestion

No problem.

Just to add to the above, REGEX_REPLACE() is the MySQL/MariaDB function although it's only supported in MySQL v8+ and MariaDB 10.0.5+; if you're below that then you could try this UDF - https://github.com/hholzgra/mysql-udf-regexp.
Obviously backup the DB/tables before using this sledge hammer approach just in case it all goes a bit wrong!

t31os · 30 Jun 2022 at 23:58

Export, tweak, import. You can possibly do this in MySQL, but it's probably quicker and easier to export it, open it up in an editor with regex support, regex replace what you need and import.

On a secondary/staging/test database first, verify your adjusted data works before you potentially fudge your live site.

Baddass · 2 Jul 2022 at 07:55

Thanks for the advice guys

ChroniC · 5 Jul 2022 at 19:22

Ignore me