The API uses the admin-ajax.php file in WordPress to make calls. If you notice a significant number of POST requests to this file, it may mean you need to limit the frequency of calls LiteSpeed Cache makes to the Heartbeat, or completely disable it.

Excessive requests to the admin-ajax.php file can lead to high CPU usage.

How to disable LiteSpeed Cache Heartbeat

To completely disable the LiteSpeed Cache Heartbeat, follow the directions below:

Step 1: Log in to your /wp-admin. Once the wp-admin of your WordPress site loads, hover over LiteSpeed Cache from the menu on the left, then click Toolbox from the menu.

Step 2: Click Heartbeat from the row of options in the top menu.

Step 3: The LiteSpeed Cache has 3 heartbeats:

• Frontend Heartbeat
• Backend Heartbeat
• Editor Heartbeat

By default, these options are disabled. However, if you want to disable Heartbeat, click the ON button next to each Heartbeat from the Heartbeat page.

When you have selected the OFF function for all three heartbeats, click Save Changes at the bottom to save these changes.

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How to Limit the LiteSpeed Cache Heartbeat

As we mentioned above, the Heartbeat in LiteSpeed Cache is disabled by default. However, if you have enabled it and noticed an uptick in the CPU Usage, you can limit the heartbeat using the instructions below.

Step 1: Log in to your /wp-admin. Once the wp-admin of your WordPress site loads, hover over LiteSpeed Cache from the menu on the left, then click Toolbox from the menu.

Step 2: Click Heartbeat from the row of options in the top menu.

Step 3: From the Heartbeats page, change the Heartbeat TTL interval for each of the three heartbeats to a more suitable interval of your choosing.

• For the Frontend Heartbeat TTL, specify the interval in seconds choosing a number between 15 and 120.
  • Use 0 to forbid heartbeat on the front end.
  • Recommended Value is 60.
• For the Backend Heartbeat TTL, specify the interval in seconds choosing a number between 15 and 120.
  • Set to 0 to forbid heartbeat on the backend.
  • Recommended Value is 60.
• For the Editor Heartbeat TTL, specify the interval in seconds choosing a number between 15 and 120.
  • Use 0 to forbid heartbeat on the front end.
  • Recommended Value is 60.

When you have finished, click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

And that’s how you disable or change the Heartbeat in the LiteSpeed Cache Plugin.

If you didn’t know, WordPress limits the types of files you can upload to your site for security reasons. However, by adding some code to your wp-config.php file, or using a free plugin, you can expand the list of file types allowed so that you’re able to upload any type of file without a problem.

In this Knowledgebase Article, we’ll cover how to do this using by editing your wp-config.php file and how to do this via a plugin.

What Causes the “Sorry, this file type is not permitted for security reasons” Message?

The default WordPress configuration limits the file types you can upload to your site for security reasons.

You’ll receive the “Sorry, this file type is not permitted for security reasons” error when you try to upload a file type that’s not supported by the default configuration.

WordPress limits you to uploading only media file types, like documents, audio, images, and video, for security reasons.

By default, the safe files you can upload are:

Images:

• .jpg
• .jpeg
• .png
• .gif
• .ico

Videos:

• .mp4
• .m4v
• .mov
• .wmv
• .avi
• .mpg
• .ogv
• .3gp
• .3g2

Documents:

• .pdf
• .doc
• .ppt, .pptx, .pps, .ppsx
• .odt
• .xls, .xlsx
• .psd

Audio

• .mp3
• .m4a
• .ogg
• .wav

If you try to upload a file that isn’t supported, you’ll receive an error stating, Sorry, this file type is not permitted for security reasons.

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How to Fix the “Sorry, this file type is not permitted for security reasons” Error in WordPress

Let’s look at two ways to fix this problem:

Add New Permitted File Types Using your wp-config.php File

Step 1: Login to your cPanel. There’s a lot of ways to do this, but the sure fire easiest way is to login to your Client Area, then open your cPanel.

Step 2: Open you File Manager from cPanel > Files.

Step 3: Navigate to the directory in which your WordPress installation is located and look for your wp-config.php file.

Step 4: Click Edit from the row of options at the top of the File Manager. A new tab will open with the code making up the wp-config.php file.

Scroll down to the bottom of the file and look for this section:

/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy publishing. */

Right before that line, add in this code:

define('ALLOW_UNFILTERED_UPLOADS', true);

Click Save Changes in the top left corner to save your changes.

Now, try to upload the file that failed originally and you should be good to go!

Use the free WP Extra File Types Plugin

Step 1: Open your /wp-admin and click Plugins > Add New from the left side.

Step 2: Use the search in the top right corner to search for the plugin WP Extra File Types.

Click install now to download the plugin, then click Activate.

Step 3: Once the plugin is activated, hover over the Settings tab, then click Extra File Types:

Step 4: Check the file types you want to be able to upload, then be sure to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes.

Now try to upload your files again and you should be good to go!

Questions? Comments? Leave us a note in the comments area below!

Not to worry, we’ll cover how to do that in this Knowledgebase Article.

How To Find The Name Of Your WordPress Database

Step 1: Login to your cPanel. There are a lot of ways to do this, but the sure-fire easiest way is to login to your Client Area, then open your cPanel.

Step 2: In your cPanel, look for the Files section (at the top) and open the File Manager.

Step 3: Navigate to your public_html folder, then find the folder in which your WordPress site is installed. In this case, it’s installed in a folder called kb2 in my public_html folder.

Then:

Once you’re in the folder/directory in which WordPress is installed, you should see the listing of files that go along with a WordPress installation, like this:

Step 4: You want to open the file called wp-config.php in the File Manager. To do this, select the wp-config.php file, then click Edit from the row of options at the top.

Step 5: After clicking Edit, a new window will open where you will see a lot of text. This is the configuration file for your WordPress site, so be sure not to make any changes. If you read through the file, look for this section:

// ** MySQL Settings - You can get this info from your web host ** //

On line 23 you will see the name of the database being used for your WordPress installation:

And that’s how you discover the name of the database running your WordPress site!

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Did you know you can disable the plugin from the database itself? Yep, sure can! In this knowledgebase article, I’ll show you how!

How To Disable WordPress Plugins From The Database

Step 1: Login to your cPanel. There’s a lot of ways to do this, but the sure fire easiest way is to login to your Client Area, then open your cPanel.

Step 2: Once your cPanel is open, scroll down to the Database section and click the phpMyAdmin app to open the utility.

Step 3: Once phpMyAdmin is open, look for your database on the left side and click the + to expand the list of tables within the database.

Step 4: The table in which plugin data is stored is always in _options. Click the table name to open it in phpMyAdmin on the right side.

Step 5: Use the pagination feature to go to page 2 of your database where you should see the option_name is active_plugins.

Step 6: Click the option_value, which in this case looks like this:

Note the portion in the orange box, this is the option_value. To open this text and see it fully, double click it.

Keep in mind, yours will look different than what you see above because you will no doubt have different plugins installed than I do.

Step 7: To disable your plugins, delete the text in this box. The plugins won’t be uninstalled, simply set to deactivated status.

To save your changes, click anywhere in the table view outside of the box where you deleted the text.

You will see a message appear ever so briefly which states 1 row affected.

Step 8: Now return to your website and try to access your /wp-admin and you should be able to!

And that’s how you use phpMyAdmin to disable the plugins you’ve installed in your WordPress site!

If you still encounter issues, be sure to contact our Happiness Engineers 24×7!

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How to reset the WordPress Admin Password via Softaculous

Step 1: Log in to your cPanel. There’s a lot of ways to do this, but the sure-fire easiest way is to log in to your Client Area, then open your cPanel.

Step 2: Scroll down to the Software section and open the Softaculous Apps Installer.

Step 3: Once Softaculous is open, click the blue Installations button to list your WordPress installs:

You will see a list of your WordPress installations. Click on the WP Manager icon on the row adjacent to the WordPress site you need to access.

Step 4: The Softaculous WordPress Management Tool will open. Click Change Password.

The Change Password modal will open. Enter the username assigned to the account for which you wish to change the password. Then enter your new password. Click Save to change the account’s password.

Congrats! Assuming the username you entered is the Admin account, then you’ve changed the Admin

How to reset the WordPress Admin Password via WP-CLI

The WordPress Command Line Interface, or WP-CLI, is an excellent tool that you can use to administer your WordPress site quickly. You can use this tool to change a user’s password. To do this, type the following command in your SSH session while connected to the server hosting your WordPress site; just replace the username with the WordPress username of the user for which you wish to change the password.

wp user update username --user_pass=password

When you change a password, WP-CLI sends a notification message to the e-mail address associated with the user account.

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How to reset the WordPress Admin Password via phpMyAdmin

This method is a bit trickier, and if you aren’t comfortable with phpMyAdmin, you should consider the first two options.

Step 1: Login to your cPanel. There’s a lot of ways to do this, but the sure-fire easiest way is to log in to your Client Area, then open your cPanel.

Step 2: Scroll down to the Databases section and click phpMyAdmin to open the tool.

Step 3: From the left-hand side of phpMyAdmin, click the database where your WordPress installation is installed.

Step 4: After opening the database, click the SQL button at the top of phpMyAdmin.

The page will load what looks like a Text Box. If you’ve ever used the Terminal, it’s very similar to this. Think of this text box as a prompt where you are going to issue commands via text.

Next, copy and paste the following code into your Notepad. Edit the fields new_password with your new password, and replace admin_username with the username of the WordPress Administrator user.

UPDATE `wp_users` SET `user_pass` = MD5( 'new_password' ) WHERE `wp_users`.`user_login` = "admin_username";

How to Set Your Website to Use HTTPS in WordPress

To force an HTTPS Redirect in WordPress, please follow the steps below:

Step 1) Once logged into your WordPress admin panel, on your WordPress Dashboard, look for the Tools section in the left-hand side menu then click on Site Health.

Additionally, you can look for the Site Health Status area. Click the link for “Site Health Screen” to open that Utility.

Step 2) Once the Site Health Screen opens, the Utility will run scans on your WordPress site to determine if there are any issues with the Health and Performance of your Site. Let the utility run.

If your site is not using HTTPS, you will see a screen that looks similar to the one below:

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Step 3) Click the downward-facing arrow next to the warning about your site not using HTTPS then click the blue-button titled Update your site to use HTTPS.

If WordPress detects that HTTPS is already supported for your Website but your Site Address isn’t using HTTPS by default, simply click the update your site to use HTTPS button and WordPress will upgrade itself to HTTPS and automatically change all your Site URLs in the process + migrate the content to the new HTTPS URLs.

Once the site will be updated to use HTTPS, you will be logged out of your WordPress admin panel. Logging in again, you will see a successful message:

Site URLs switched to HTTPS.

That’s it! WordPress will modify itself to use https:// instead of http:// in all of the URLs referencing itself on your site! No other trickery or configuration needed. It’s like magic!

This KB Article will instruct you on 2 methods of disabling XML-RPC.

Why should I disable XML-RPC?

As this feature is needed less and less, security risks are associated with leaving it enabled. These can include, but are not limited to in scope:

• Brute Force Attacks – Where an attacker can use xml-rpc to test hundreds of username and password combinations until they are eventually able to gain access to your site. This occurs because xml-rpc does not have the same login attempt limit when you normally log into WordPress.
• DDoS Attack – Where an attacker can use xml-rpc to pingback thousands of IPs. This allows them to send a flood of data and traffic which can cause overages and even have networks paralyzed and shutdown.

How to Disable XML-RPC Using a Plugin

The easiest way to disable XML-RPC is to use a plugin.

Step 1: Login to your /wp-admin and hover over Plugins from the menu on the left side. In the little menu that appears, click Add New:

Step 2: Use the search box in the top right corner and search for “Disable XML-RPC” (without the quotes). Find the Disable XML-RPC-API plugin by Neatmarketing and click the Install Now button in the search results.

Once the plugin is installed, click the Blue activate button:

By clicking activate, your site will be protected from XML-RPC attacks, and XML-RPC will be disabled.

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How to Disable XML-RPC Using .htaccess

Suppose you’d prefer not to increase the memory footprint of your WordPress installation or worry about managing another plugin. In that case, you can use the .htaccess to disable XML-RPC on your WordPress site.

Step 1: Login to your cPanel. There are a lot of ways to do this, but the sure-fire easiest way is to log in to your Client Area, then open your cPanel.

Step 2: Look in the Files section (1st section from the top) and click to open the File Manager.

Step 3: Once the file manager is open, double click the globe icon to the left of your public_html folder.

Step 4: Once your public_html folder is open, look for your .htaccess file:

Click the file name once to highlight it. Then in the menu bar at the top, click Edit:

In the editor modal that appears, click the Edit button in the lower right corner:

Step 5: A new window will open with the context/text of your .htaccess file.

Paste the below text at the end of your .htaccess file, then click Save Changes in the top right.

# BEGIN Block WordPress xmlrpc.php requests
 <Files xmlrpc.php>
 order deny,allow
 deny from all
 allow from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
 </Files>
# END WordPress xmlrpc.php requests

You can close the editor tab after clicking Save Changes.

Congrats! This will disable the XML-RPC features of your WordPress installation and you can rest easy!

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This message can be frustrating and concerning, but fortunately, there are some easy steps you can take to understand the cause of this problem better and find a solution.

In this KB article, we will discuss what this error means, why it happens, and how you can fix it.

Let’s go!

What Does “Your PHP Installation Appears to be Missing the MySQL Extension Which Is Required by WordPress” Mean?

There are a handful of reasons you might see this message on your WordPress site.

One reason is that the PHP installation on the server doesn’t have the required MySQL extension to connect WordPress to your MySQL database. It’s really important to know that support for this extension was deprecated in versions of PHP 7.0 and beyond.

If you are seeing this message, your WordPress’ site core code isn’t compatible with the version of PHP you’re using. This can also indicate:

• MySQL isn’t installed or enabled.
• The PHP extension is not configured correctly.
• Your WordPress files are outdated.

This issue is widespread on server environments that don’t have MySQL installed by default, but at ChemiCloud, this is installed on our servers, so you won’t have to worry about that being the cause.

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How to Fix “Your PHP Installation Appears to be Missing the MySQL Extension Which Is Required by WordPress” Error

Update Your WordPress Installation

The easiest way to fix this error and the first thing you should try is to update your WordPress installation to the most recent version. To do this, just log in to your /wp-admin and click Updates from the left:

On the Update page, look for an update to your WordPress installation:

Once you’ve updated, revisit your site and see if your issue is resolved.

If not, proceed to step 2.

Make Sure the MySQL Extension Is Installed

If updating your WordPress installation didn’t help, or you didn’t have an update to do, the next prudent step would be to check if the MySQL extension is installed and enabled.

Some operating systems don’t include the MySQL extension by default. If you’re using a custom operating system configuration, you may need to install it yourself.

You can check if the MySQL extension is installed by creating a php.info in your public_html folder.

Step 1: Open your cPanel and in the Files section, click File Manager:

Step 2: When the file manager is open, double click the globe icon next to the public_html folder to open the folder.

Step 3: When the public_html folder is open, click the + File icon in the top left of the file manager.

A modal will appear where you can give the file a name. Enter info.php and click Create a new file.

Step 4: After the file is created, single-click the file in the directory listing, then click Edit at the top:

The modal window will appear where you will be given the option to check the UTF encoding.

95% of users can proceed and click Edit.

A new window will open with a text editor:

Copy and paste the text below into the editor, then click Save Changes in the top right:

<?php
// Show all information, defaults to INFO_ALL
phpinfo();
// Show just the module information.
// phpinfo(8) yields identical results.
phpinfo(INFO_MODULES);

Your screen should look similar to the one below:

Now, open a new tab in your browser and visit https://yourdomain.tld/info.php. You’ll see a page with the details of your PHP installation:

Look for the mysql or mysqli section. If the extension is installed, it will display the version next to Client API:

If it’s blank, the extension is not installed. Installation steps vary depending on your web host and their servers/infrastructure. You can refer to the PHP documentation and installation guides for detailed guidance.

If your host uses cPanel, you can enable the MySQL extension by clicking on Select PHP Version under Software:

After choosing the most recent PHP version, tick the boxes for “mysqli” and/or “mysqlnd”. Save your changes, then refresh your site to see if the error is resolved.

If not, proceed to step 3.

Verify the PHP Extension Is Properly Configured

If Step 2 didn’t help, it’s highly probable/likely that your PHP extension directory is not configured properly, if at all. Go back to the php.info page you created and look for “Loaded Configuration File”.

This is where you will find the value to the path, which will look very similar to the image below:

Make a note of the path value.

Next, locate the extension_dir parameter:

The entry should match up with the Loaded Configuration File path. In the above example, you’ll notice that it displays the correct extension directory path for the PHP version installed on our server.

However, if yours points to the incorrect location, you’ll need to edit your php.ini file to replace it with the correct one.

And that’s it!

These steps will help you get your WordPress site fixed; however, if you have reviewed these steps and are still unable to fix the problem, definitely open a ticket from your Client Area to contact our Support Team 24×7!

If you enjoyed this tutorial, then you’ll love our support! All ChemiCloud’s hosting plans include 24/7 support from our fantastic support team.

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WordPress calls this a Search & Replace.

Other circumstances in which you may find a Search & Replace to be very useful are if you migrated from HTTP to HTTPS or have recently changed your domain name.

In this Knowledge Base article we will cover how to do a WordPress Search & Replace using 3 easy methods!

Let’s go!

How to Perform a WordPress Search and Replace Using a Pugin (Better Search Replace)

The Better Search Replace plugin is a fantastic choice and my go-to plugin when it comes to performing a search and replace for a lot of items. The plugin is free and from the noted WordPress plugin developers over at Delicious Brains (mmm ). The plugin consolidates a lot of features from other plugins into one plugin and supports the following features:

• Serialization support for all tables.
• The ability to select specific tables.
• The ability to run a “dry run” to see how many fields will be updated.
• No server requirements aside from a running installation of WordPress.
• WordPress Multisite support.

With the Pro version you get these additional features:

• View exactly what changed during a search/replace.
• Backup and import the database while running a search/replace.
• Priority email support from the developer of the plugin.
• Save or load custom profiles for quickly repeating a search/replace in the future.
• Support and updates for 1 year.

Step 1: Download, install and activate the Better Search Replace plugin by navigating to your /wp-admin > Clicking Plugins > Add New and searching for Better Search Replace.

Once the plugin is installed, click Activate to enable Better Search Replace.

You will be returned to your Plugins area where you will see all of your plugins.

Step 2: To open Better Search Replace, hover over Tools on the left side and in the little menu which appears click Better Search Replace.

Step 3: When the Better Search Replace page opens, you will see you have a few options. Let’s examine them.

• In Search for you have will enter the text you want to change.
• In Replace with you will enter the text that will replace the original text.
• In Select tables you would select the tables you want Better Search Replace to query and update.
• Case-insensitive means Better Search Replace won’t care if you are searching for chemicloud or ChemiCloud.
• Replace GUIDs should generally be left alone. Please see the important note below regarding this.
• Run as dry run will just run the query and search, but no updates or changes will be made.

For my Search and Replace, I want to change the references to posts that contain the term cchosting to ChemiCloud. To do this, I’m going to configure my settings as follows:

After clicking Run/Search Replace, I can see it was successful and updated the references to cchosting in my posts database to ChemiCloud:

Success! And that is how you use Better Search Replace plugin to update content on your website quickly and easily!

How to Perform a WordPress Search and Replace Using the wp-cli

WP-CLI is a set of command-line tools for managing WordPress installations, without using a web browser.

Step 1: Open up an SSH connection to your hosting account. If you are not familiar with how to do this, please review our KB on the topic here.

Step 2: Once you are connected via SSH, you would use the following command to perform a search and replace:

wp search-replace 'original text' 'new text' --skip-columns=guid

By default, the search-replace command does the tables registered with $wpdb. You may have some custom tables that also need to be updated and then the –all-tables flag is very useful.

wp search-replace 'original text' 'new text' ---skip-columns=guid --all-tables --recurse-objects --precise

Note, we are using the flag –skip-columns=guid to ensure our GUIDs are not modified.

For more commands and examples for tasks, you can perform using wp search-replace, reference the official documentation on the subject here.

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How to Perform a WordPress Search and Replace Using phpMyAdmin

Step 1: Log in to your cPanel. There’s a lot of ways to do this, but the sure-fire easiest way is to log in to your Client Area, then open your cPanel.

Step 2: Under the Databases section, click phpMyAdmin to open the utility.

Step 3: Once phpMyAdmin is open, click on the database containing your WordPress installation on the left to select the database.

The list of tables in the database will be displayed to indicate the database has been selected.

Once you have selected the database for your WordPress installation, click SQL at the top of phpMyAdmin.

Step 4: Once you have clicked SQL, the phpMyAdmin app will display a text box which looks very much like the one below:

You can think of this text box as a console, similar to SSH. Using valid mySQL commands, you can make changes to your database tables and content within the tables with ease.

The commands you want to use to perform a search and replace via the SQL command line is as follows:

update TABLE_NAME set FIELD_NAME = replace(FIELD_NAME, 'Text to search for, 'Text to replace it with');

Simply update the appropriate areas of the command with the right table name, field name, and the text to search for and replace with, then press return on your keyboard to run the command.

When the process is finished, and depending on the amount of changes you are making, it could take a few minutes, you will see a message indicating the number of instances updated or changed. You can then visit your WordPress site to make sure the changes have been made successfully!

If you enjoyed this tutorial, then you’ll love our support! All ChemiCloud’s hosting plans include 24/7 support from our amazing support team.

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Why Would You Want or Need To Change the Site URL?

There’s a lot of reasons why you might want to or need to change your WordPress Site URL. Some of them include:

• You’ve decided to (wisely) use HTTPS.
• You’ve changed your domain name.
• You’re moving your WordPress installation from one directory to another.
• You’re moving your WordPress installation from one subdomain to another domain.
• You started designing your site using a local server, like WAMP, XAMPP, and have decided to transfer to your new web hosting, but with a different URL.

There are some other instances where you may need to update your Site URL as well, namely if you are seeing a lot of too many redirect error messages.

WordPress Address vs. Site URL

When you change your WordPress Site URL, you need to update 2 settings separately – WordPress Address and Site Address. This can be confusing if you don’t know the difference between the two settings.

Your WordPress Address is the address/location where WordPress and the files/folders it requires for operation are stored, as well as your administrative pages, media files, your plugins, and themes, etc…

Your Site Address is the publicly addressable part of your website – i.e. the URL visitors type in their browser to access your website.

Typically, these addresses are the same, however, some users may want to store their WordPress files in a separate directory and have their website as the Site URL.

We will cover the various methods to change your Site URL below.

How to Change Your WordPress Site URL

We will cover the various methods to change your Site URL below.

Using the WP-Admin Area

Step 1: Login to your /wp-admin and using the menu on the left hover over Settings and click General.

Step 2: Beneath General Settings you can enter a new WordPress Address URL and a new Site Address.

Using the two text boxes, you can enter your new URLs.

Don’t forget to click Save Changes at the bottom to store the settings. You’ll also want to visit your site to make sure the new URLs are working okay.

How to Change WordPress URL in wp-config.php File

The second most common way to change your WordPress URL is in your wp-config.php file. It is important to know that values in wp-config.php will override the settings in your WordPress admin panel (General Settings)

The wp-config.php file is typically located in the root directory of your WordPress site and can be accessed via FTP, SSH.

In your wp-config.php file, add these two lines somewhere above the line that tells you to stop editing:

define( 'WP_HOME', 'https://mynewdomain.tld' );
define( 'WP_SITEURL', 'https://mynewdomain.tld' );

Save your wp-config.php file and close it.

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How to Change WordPress URL With WP-CLI

WP-CLI is a set of command-line tools for managing WordPress installations, without using a web browser.

Step 1: Open up an SSH connection to your hosting account. If you are not familiar with how to do this, please review our KB on the topic here.

Step 2: Once you are connected via SSH, you would use the following commands:

wp option update home 'https://mynewdomain.tld'
wp option update siteurl 'https://mynewdomain.tld'

After you type out each command, press enter/return on your keyboard to execute the change.

Congrats! Using this command you will have updated your WordPress Site URLs!

How to Change WordPress Site URLs using phpMyAdmin

Step 1: Log in to your cPanel. There’s a lot of ways to do this, but the sure-fire easiest way is to log in to your Client Area, then open your cPanel.

Step 2: Under the Databases section, click phpMyAdmin to open the utility.

Step3: When phpMyAdmin opens, look for your database on the left:

Click the + next to the database to expand it. Once expanded, click on the wpft_options table. Note, don’t click the + next to it, just click on the name.

Your table prefix may vary, however, your table names will still be the same, so you’ll want to click the one that ends in _options in your phpMyAdmin.

Step 4: After clicking on the options table, you will see a screen that displays each row in that table. It will look very similar to the one below:

The rows we need to look for are at the top. Look under the column option_name for the ‘siteurl’ and ‘home’:

Beneath the column option_value you can triple-click into the row to make the data in that column editable. After doing so, enter your new Site URL Address in BOTH the siteurl and home rows.

Congrats! Using this method you will have updated your WordPress Site URLs!

How to Change WordPress Site URLs using WordPress Search and Replace Plugin

The Better Search Replace is a fantastic (and free!) plugin you can use to update your website URLs. This plugin is especially useful if you have changed your domain name entirely as it will scan your WordPress site for any mention of your old domain in your posts and pages and update the links with your new domain name.

Step 1: Login to your /wp-admin and using the menu on the left, hover over Plugins and in the little menu that expands, click Add New.

Step 2: Using the search in the top right corner, search for Better Search Replace, then press enter/return on your keyboard to submit the search query.

Step 3: Locate the Better Search Replace plugin in the results and click the Install button to download & install the plugin.

After the plugin has downloaded, click the blue Activate button to enable the plugin.

After activating the plugin you will be redirected to the Plugins page where you will see the installed plugins listed.

Step 4: Open Better Search Replace by navigating to the menu on the left and hovering over Tools, then click Better Search Replace.

Step 5: On the Better Search Replace Screen, you have several options. Let’s review them:

In Search For you would enter your old domain name.
In Replace With you would enter your new domain.
In Select Tables you would highlight all of the WordPress database tables you want to search and update.
If your search is case-sensitive, you can check the case-sensitive box.
Replace GUIDs: It is generally advised to leave this unchecked. For more info, click here.
Lastly, you have the option to run as a dry run. This option will scan the database, but will not make any changes, allowing you to see what will change beforehand.

To update your site’s posts and pages to your new domain name, enter the old domain in Search For and the new domain in Replace With, then uncheck the run as dry run box and click the Run/Search Replace button to make the changes.

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