Search and replace words across a whole WordPress site, page builders included
The old phone number in the footer. A business name from before the rebrand. A price that went up. A domain you moved away from. Find every copy in seconds and fix them all in one go, whichever page builder the site was built with.
Included in WPCentrify. No add-on to buy.
What is WordPress search and replace?
WordPress search and replace finds a word or phrase everywhere it appears on a WordPress website and changes it, or removes it, in one go instead of page by page. It is how you update a phone number, a business name, a price or an old web address that has spread across dozens of pages.
Find & Replace is how WPCentrify does it. You search a client’s site from your WPCentrify dashboard, see every place the words appear, and change the ones you choose, with a preview before and an undo after. It reads pages the way the page builder built them, so the layout stays exactly as it was.
A site-wide wording change is never on just one page
Every agency gets these jobs, and they always come at the worst time.
“We changed our phone number, can you update it everywhere?”
“We rebranded. The old name can’t appear anywhere on the site.”
“That service is gone, please take it off every page.”
“Our prices went up on Monday.”
The words are never on just one page. They are in:
- The footer
- A reusable block
- Three blog posts from 2021
- The SEO description Google shows
- An image’s alt text
- A button link
Today there are two ways to do it, and both are bad
Page by page in wp-admin
Open each page, find the words, change them, save, repeat. An afternoon of work, and you still miss the one in the footer template.
An afternoonA database search and replace plugin
Fast, but risky. These tools don’t understand page builders. Plenty of them skip builder pages entirely, and the rest can break a layout without warning. One wrong press and you’re restoring a backup.
Fast, but riskyFind & Replace in WPCentrify
As fast as the plugin and as careful as doing it by hand. Every match shown on its page, a preview before you press Replace, and an undo after.
Minutes, safelyHow to search and replace in WordPress, in four steps
Open the website in WPCentrify, go to the Find & Replace tab, and:
Search
Type a word, a phrase, a phone number or an old address into the website’s Find & Replace tab in WPCentrify.
Review
See every match on its page, with the page’s address and the words around it, exactly as a visitor reads them.
Choose
Tick the matches to change, or change everything you have filtered to.
Replace and confirm
A preview shows what each change will look like. Press Replace and watch the progress. Changed your mind? Undo.
Search and replace in Elementor, Divi and the other page builders your clients use
Search works across the block editor, the Classic editor and every popular page builder. Twenty editors are searched. Twelve of them can be changed from the dashboard.
Find and replace from the dashboard
Changes can be made from WPCentrify on these twelve editors and page builders.
- Gutenberg
- Classic editor
- Elementor
- Divi 4 and 5
- WPBakery
- Avada
- Beaver Builder
- Bricks
- SiteOrigin
- SeedProd
- Enfold
- Themify
Find only, for now
Matches are also found on these eight, so you know exactly where the words are. On these builders, the change itself is made in the builder for now.
- Oxygen
- Brizy
- Breakdance
- Thrive Architect
- Visual Composer
- Zion
- Live Composer
- Cornerstone
Every copy of a sentence a page builder keeps behind the scenes changes together, and only the words change. The layout stays exactly as it was.
Five reasons it is safe to press Replace on a live client site
1. It works with every major editor and page builder
Search works across Gutenberg, the Classic editor and every popular page builder. Changes can be made from the dashboard on Gutenberg, Classic editor, Elementor, Divi (4 and 5), WPBakery, Avada, Beaver Builder, Bricks, SiteOrigin, SeedProd, Enfold and Themify.
It also finds matches on Oxygen, Brizy, Breakdance, Thrive Architect, Visual Composer, Zion, Live Composer and Cornerstone, so you know exactly where the words are. On those builders, the change itself is made in the builder for now.
2. It finds the words hiding in places you would never check
Not just page text. Find & Replace also looks in:
- headers, footers and reusable blocks, where the phone number usually lives
- page and post titles, and excerpts
- SEO titles and meta descriptions from Yoast, Rank Math, SEOPress, The SEO Framework and Slim SEO
- link addresses and image alt text
- custom fields and menus
- pages, posts and every custom post type the site has, published or not
3. It finds what you meant, not just what you typed
Copy a sentence off the live site and paste it in. It will still be found, even though WordPress saves curly quotes, dashes and spacing differently from how it shows them. Capitals don’t matter unless you ask them to. For the stricter jobs there are options for whole words only, match case, and advanced patterns.
You can also keep each match’s capitals, so “ACME”, “Acme” and “acme” each come out in the right case.
4. It checks every change before it makes it
This is the reason it is safe to press the button:
- Preview first. The confirmation shows exactly how the changed sentences will read.
- Nothing half done. Page builders keep the same sentence in more than one place behind the scenes. Every copy changes together, or none of them do. If a change can’t be made safely, it isn’t made, and the row says why.
- Your colleague’s edit is kept. If somebody edits a page in WordPress while you are working, their edit survives and only your words change.
- Layouts stay intact. Only the words change. Nothing else on the page is touched.
- Visitors see it straight away. Popular page caches are cleared after each change, so the new wording shows up without anyone pressing “clear cache”.
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Northridge Dental · 555-0142 555-0199 · 14 Lake Road
Book a whitening consultation in Austin. Call 555-0142 555-0199 today.
5. Undo, even later
Every replacement is kept in a history on the website’s page, with an Undo button. Undo still works after other changes have been made to the page since.
If somebody has since edited the replaced words themselves, that one change is not undone and the screen says so. It won’t guess. History is kept for 90 days.
One old phone number on 60 pages: before and after
A client changes their phone number. It’s on 60 pages, in the footer template, in two SEO descriptions and in a “Call us” button link.
The old way
Log in, open each page, find it, edit, save. Then remember the footer template. Then the SEO plugin. Then hope. Most of an afternoon, and a nagging feeling you missed one.
With Find & Replace
One search, one look at the list, one press. A few minutes, and you can see every place it was and that every one changed.
The other saving is confidence. You don’t have to say “I think I got them all”. The list shows them all. How long a run takes depends on the size of the site and how quickly the client’s hosting responds: minutes, not an afternoon.
Filters, so you change exactly what you mean to
Results can be narrowed before anything is replaced:
- Where on the page: visible text, links, image alt text, titles, SEO fields, custom fields and more, each with a count
- Kind of page: pages, posts, products, services, any custom type
- Editor: which page builder made the page
- Page status: published, draft, private, scheduled
- Can it be changed here: separate what can be fixed now from what can’t
- Result: after a replacement, see what changed and what didn’t
- A search box to narrow the results further
“Replace all shown” only touches what the filters are showing. A press can never reach a row that wasn’t on the screen.
What agencies use WordPress search and replace for
A new phone number
In the header, the footer, the contact page, every “Call us” button link and the SEO descriptions.
A rebrand
The old business name out of page text, titles, alt text, menus and SEO titles, keeping each match’s capitals.
A price change
Every mention of the old price in page text, across service pages and posts, filtered to just the pages you mean.
A retired product or service
Find every mention, then remove it or swap in what replaced it.
An old web address
Old domain and page addresses in link addresses and page text. To move a whole site to a new domain, use site migration.
A person who has left
A former colleague’s name or email address on team pages, bios and contact details.
Search and replace plugin, page by page, or Find & Replace?
There are three ways to change words across a WordPress site. This is how they compare on the jobs agencies actually get.
| What matters | WPCentrify Find & Replace | Page by page in wp-admin | A database search and replace plugin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speed on a 60-page job | Minutes | Most of an afternoon | Minutes |
| Page builder pages | Twelve editors changed from the dashboard, twenty searched | Edited in each builder by hand | Varies. Many skip builder pages or can break a layout |
| Shows each match in its sentence, on its page | Yes, with the page address | Only while you have the page open | Varies by plugin |
| Preview of each changed sentence | Yes, before you confirm | You see each edit as you make it | Varies by plugin |
| Undo after the run | Yes, kept for 90 days | Page revisions, one page at a time | Varies by plugin. A backup restore otherwise |
| Footers, menus, SEO fields and alt text | Searched together | Each in its own screen | Varies by plugin |
| Who can change, and a record of it | Separate search and change permissions, every run in the Activity feed | Anyone with an admin login | Anyone with an admin login |
| Where you do it | From the WPCentrify dashboard | In each site’s wp-admin | In each site’s wp-admin, one more plugin to keep updated |
Database search and replace plugins differ a lot, and some are built for moving a site to a new domain rather than changing words on pages. “Varies by plugin” means exactly that: check the one you use. For a full domain move, see site migration.
Safety and permissions
Two permission levels
People who can search, and people who can change. Replace and Undo only appear for people allowed to change content. Roles are set in team and client access.
Every run on the record
Every replacement and every undo is recorded in the Activity feed with who did it, when, and how many changes were made.
Words only
Replacements are words only. You can’t paste code or markup into a website through it by accident.
Some things are never touched
Code snippets, orders and form entries are never searched or changed.
Honest limits
Agencies find these out in five minutes anyway, so here they are first.
- Eight page builders are find only for now (Oxygen, Brizy, Breakdance, Thrive Architect, Visual Composer, Zion, Live Composer, Cornerstone). You see every match and where it is; the change is made in the builder.
- Widgets and the theme Customizer aren’t searched. They live outside the pages themselves.
- Words split across formatting (for example, half of a phone number in bold) are found but not changed from here, because changing them would remove the formatting.
- It works one website at a time. Every client site has the same tab.
- Very large searches stop at 5,000 matches and say so. Past that, narrow the search.
If one of these decides it for you, tell us, or see what is coming on the roadmap.
Requirements and pricing
- The WPCentrify plugin on the website, version 2.20.0 or newer.
- Included in WPCentrify. There’s no add-on to buy.
- A site on an older plugin version still shows the tab, with a message saying to update. The tab never just goes missing.
See pricing for what every plan includes. WPCentrify is free during early access.
Questions about WordPress search and replace
Open the website in WPCentrify and go to the Find & Replace tab. Type the words, review every match on its page, tick the ones to change, check the preview and press Replace. Every replacement can be undone from the history for 90 days.
It is with Find & Replace. You see a preview of every changed sentence first, every copy of a sentence a page builder keeps changes together or not at all, a colleague’s edit made in the meantime is kept, only the words change, and you can undo afterwards.
No. Only the words change and nothing else on the page is touched. Elementor, Divi 4 and 5, WPBakery, Avada, Beaver Builder, Bricks, SiteOrigin, SeedProd, Enfold, Themify, Gutenberg and the Classic editor can be changed from the dashboard. Eight other builders are find only for now.
Yes. Every replacement is kept in the website’s history for 90 days with an Undo button, and undo still works after other changes have been made to the page. If somebody has since edited the replaced words themselves, that one change is not undone and the screen says so.
Yes. It searches SEO titles and meta descriptions from Yoast, Rank Math, SEOPress, The SEO Framework and Slim SEO, alongside page text, titles, excerpts, link addresses, image alt text, custom fields and menus.
Yes, where the header and footer are built from reusable blocks or page builder templates. Widgets and the theme Customizer are not searched, because they live outside the pages themselves.
Yes. Capitals don’t matter unless you ask them to, and there are options for whole words only, match case and advanced patterns. You can also keep each match’s capitals, so ACME, Acme and acme each come out in the right case.
No. Find & Replace works one website at a time, and every client site you manage in WPCentrify has the same tab.
No. Find & Replace is included in WPCentrify and runs through the WPCentrify plugin the website already uses, version 2.20.0 or newer. There is no add-on to buy.
It finds and replaces an old address in link addresses and page text. For moving a whole website to a new domain, use WPCentrify site migration instead.
Never tell a client “I think I got them all” again
One search, one look at the list, one press. Minutes, not an afternoon.
Included in WPCentrify. No add-on to buy.