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How to Easily Update URLs When Moving Your WordPress Site

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Do you want to update your URLs after moving your WordPress site?

It can be time-consuming to manually edit each post or page just to replace old URLs. Luckily, there are WordPress plugins that help you automate the process of updating old URLs.

In this article, we will show you how to easily update URLs when moving your WordPress site.

How to Update URLs when Moving your WordPress Site

Here is a list of topics we will cover in this guide:

When Do You Need to Update URLs on Your WordPress Site?

Let’s suppose you moved a WordPress site to a new domain name. You can then change the WordPress address and site URL by visiting the Settings » General page from your WordPress dashboard.

Changing WordPress and site URLs

However, this doesn’t change the URLs that you have previously added to your posts and pages. It also doesn’t change the URLs of images you have added to your WordPress site.

Changing all of these URLs manually in every blog post and page can be time-consuming. Plus, there is always a chance that you will miss some URLs, which can lead to broken links on your website.

That’s why it is important to update your URLs when moving your WordPress website.

It helps in providing a smooth user experience for your users, as they will easily find the page they’re looking for. Updating URLs also improves your WordPress SEO and allows search engines to find new content for indexing.

Last but not least, you also want to ensure there are proper 301 redirects set up from your old domain to the new domain so users are always redirected to the right place.

This is extremely important because there are likely other websites that are linking to your old domain, including social media posts, Google, and more.

With that said, let’s see how you can quickly and easily update URLs when migrating your WordPress site.

Update URLs After Moving a WordPress Site

The easiest way to update old links on your website is by using the Go Live Update Urls plugin for WordPress. It is a free WordPress plugin that lets you update URLs in your posts, pages, images, excerpts, widgets, and more.

However, make sure that you have a complete backup of your WordPress site before updating all the links. This will allow you to easily revert back in case something goes wrong during the update process.

Next, you will need to install and activate Go Live Update Urls on your site. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you should navigate to Tools » Go Live from your WordPress admin panel.

Select core tables to update

On this page, you can update URLs in your posts, comments, options, user data, and other areas of your site by checking the WordPress core tables options in the plugin.

WordPress core tables are where all your website data is organized and stored. For example, a wp_comments table will have all the information about comments on your site, along with data about the person commenting.

Besides that, the Go Live Update Urls plugin also lets you update old URLs in the data used by different plugins on your website. However, this is an optional step, and you can skip it.

Update URLs in plugin data

Next, you will need to scroll down to the section for updating the old links to the new URLs.

Go ahead and enter the ‘Old URL’ and ‘New URL’ in the respective fields.

Enter old and new URL

Once that’s done, simply click the ‘Update Urls’ button. The plugin will now update all the URLs on your site to the new domain.

Redirect Posts & Pages After Updating URLs

After you have updated all the URLs on your website, you will now need to set up 301 redirects for your entire site to the new domain. This will preserve links from sites that were linking to your old domain and prevent 404 errors.

The easiest way of performing a full site redirect is by using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin. It is the best SEO WordPress plugin and is trusted by over 3 million professionals.

AIOSEO offers a powerful redirection manager that lets you redirect old URLs to new ones in just a few clicks. The plugin also helps track 404 errors on your site so you can quickly find and fix any broken links.

For this tutorial, we will be using the AIOSEO Pro version because it includes the redirection manager and other features like sitemaps, custom breadcrumbs, and schema markup. You can also try the free version of AIOSEO to get started.

The first thing you’ll need to do is install and activate the AIOSEO plugin on your site. If you need help, then please refer to our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you will need to go to All in One SEO » Dashboard from your WordPress admin panel. Now click the ‘Launch the Setup Wizard’ button to configure the plugin.

AIOSEO dashboard launch setup wizard

All you have to do is follow the steps in the setup wizard. For more information, see our detailed tutorial on how to set up All in One SEO for WordPress.

1. Setting Up Full Site Redirects

This method is super useful when you are merging two separate WordPress sites into one or if you are going to set up a new WordPress install for the new domain because it will handle a full site redirect without adding any code.

Simply head over to All in One SEO » Redirects from your WordPress admin area and click the ‘Activate Redirects’ button.

Activate AIOSEO redirects

Upon activation, you will need to navigate to the ‘Full Site Redirect’ tab and enable the ‘Relocate Site’ toggle.

Next, you can enter your new domain name in the ‘Relocate to domain’ option.

Full site redirect

After entering your new domain URL, don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings. AIOSEO will now redirect all the links on your site to the new URL.

2. Setting Up Individual Post / Page Redirects

AIOSEO also offers different types of redirection methods that you can use to set up individual post and page redirects.

We recommend selecting the ‘301 Moved Permanently’ redirection type. This tells your browser that the page has been moved to a new destination permanently, and you don’t wish to move it back.

Add redirection for old links

Once you have filled out these details, simply click the ‘Add Redirect’ button.

You can see the different redirects you have created by scrolling down and viewing the logs.

Redirection logs in AIOSEO

You can see the URLs, the number of people that visited the link, the type of redirection you have set, and also choose whether to enable or disable the redirect.

In the ‘Settings’ tab under Redirects, you can choose to set up server-level redirects as well, which are way faster. The default method is set to PHP, which is the easiest way to redirect old URLs, and it doesn’t require any server-side configuration.

But you can select ‘Web Server’ as the redirection method and then choose either Apache or NGINX as your web server. We won’t recommend this method for beginners as it requires technical knowledge.

Select the Redirect Method

When you update your URLs to a new domain, it is also essential to keep an eye on any broken links. These are links that no longer exist and show a 404 error page. They can occur if any URL doesn’t get updated properly.

With AIOSEO, it is very easy to track and fix 404 error pages using the Redirection Manager.

To begin, you can head over to All in One SEO » Redirects from your WordPress dashboard.

Next, go ahead and click the ‘Settings’ tab under Redirects and then click on the toggle to enable the ‘404 Logs’ and ‘Redirect Logs’ options.

Enable 404 logs

Using AIOSEO, you can choose the time period to keep your 404 error logs. We recommend that you select no longer than one month for smooth and optimal WordPress performance.

Once you have enabled these options, click the ‘Save Changes’ button at the top of the page to store your settings.

You should now see a new ‘404 Logs’ tab appear under Redirects in AIOSEO. Under this tab, the plugin will track and show 404 error pages on your website.

An important thing to note is that you won’t see any data under the 404 Logs tab at first. The plugin will only start to record broken links after you have enabled the settings.

However, once the setting has been active for some time, go ahead and click on the ‘404 Logs’ tab. You’ll see a list of broken links under the URL column, the number of visits under the Hits column, and the last accessed date.

Click 404 logs menu option

To fix any broken link, simply click the ‘Add Redirect’ button for the respective URL. AIOSEO will now show options to set up redirection for the 404 error URL.

You will need to enter the new link under the ‘Target URL’ field and select ‘301 Moved Permanently’ as the Redirection Type from the dropdown menu.

Add redirect for your broken link

Next, go ahead and click the ‘Add Redirect’ button to fix the broken link on your website.

To check if the redirection is working, simply visit the old URL. If you are redirected to the new URL, then it means you have successfully fixed 404 error pages.

Our Best Guides on Moving Your WordPress Site

Now that you know how to update URLs when moving to a new domain name, you might want to see some of our other guides on how to move your website:

We hope this article helped you learn how to update URLs when moving your WordPress site. You may also want to see our guide on how to get a free SSL certificate or our expert picks of the best email marketing services for small businesses.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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Reader Interactions

127 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

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  2. mohadese esmaeeli says

    I know that if, for any reason, I decide to change my site’s domain, I need to consider some crucial points to preserve its SEO. How long does it take for our links to return to their previous positions in Google search results?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      There is no guaranteed timeframe for your page rankings, following the steps from this guide will help with minimizing the time the rankings may have trouble.

      Admin

  3. Eric B says

    WOW!! This was incredibly easy and fast. I am blown away on how seamless this was. Thank you for sharing!

  4. Ben Jamir says

    I installed activated, unfortunately, it failed to change the images URL. After switching my site to https, i had to change my site address to a non-www
    Example : from http:www.example.com to https:example.com

    SSL is properly activated, my site is up but most of the images still points to the www version of my site.

    The plugin report was zero changes done for all attachment files.

    Any idea or advice will be helpful

    Thank you

    • WPBeginner Support says

      You would want to ensure the options were checked below the url and that the url you entered was correct as well for the most common reasons

      Admin

  5. Ben Jamir says

    I am impressed with all the positive comments. I am planning to install and try this plugin for changing my image URLs.
    One thing I want to know is that if the plugin succeeds and does what it’s supposed to do, do we need to keep the plugin installed and activated?
    Once the job is done can we deactivate the plugin?
    Will deactivating the plugin reverts the changes it made ???

    Thank you

    • WPBeginner Support says

      You can delete Velvet Blues after it has updated your URLs without them being reverted

      Admin

  6. Caroline says

    I tried Velvet Blues Update URLs, but it doesn’t work in custom fields. Is there any other way to update custom fields?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Did you check the option for it to update custom fields? You may want to reach out to the plugin’s support if that option isn’t having it update your fields

      Admin

  7. Abdessamad says

    Thanx for this article it was very helpful, I have a question though, Is there a way to automatically remove the old urls from my database ?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      It would depend on what you mean, this method should handle links in posts and pages but in general, if you have your old url in plugins we do not have a recommended method at the moment.

      Admin

  8. Linda says

    Thanks for telling us about this plugin. Haven’t tried it yet, but will soon. I was working away on the subdomain we’re using to create our new site, and adding links when I suddenly thought, “Bet these links don’t get updated automatically. Do I need to record every one I’ve created so I can update it later?”

    So glad to know there’s a plugin that will do most of this for us.j

    Thank you,

    Linda

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Well done, you can certainly update your links manually, the plugin is an option for those who don’t want to manually go through all of their content on their site to update the links :)

      Admin

  9. Dionne says

    Hi there,

    I managed to update all textlinks using broken link checker. But buttons (wp bakery) are not affected. Will this plugin update the link in buttons too?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      You would want to check with WPBakery to see if it currently allows this type of editing

      Admin

  10. Nidhi says

    Hey will it change all my Quicklinks in each page go my footer. I have different Quicklinks and buttons to the specific pages and all the links needs to be changed. SO will it work ???

    Also my wordpress website is under wordpress folder so the link also mention the wordpress folder on the website If I will change the folder name and then put a link in
    old saying “www.example.test/wordpress” and
    new saying “www.newsite.com/renamefoldername”

    SO will this work or do I manually have to change the link for each pages

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Depending on how the quick links were created it likely will not update those but it will be able to update the folder.

      Admin

  11. Naga Kishore says

    The same issue happened on one of my client website after migration.

    when i am trying to add a new image in the slider it is not with updating the new urls & showing 404 errors.

    After using the plugin Velvet Blues Update URLs the issue is resolved. Thanks for sharing the article.

  12. Rob says

    Hey I’m having an issue,
    Whats happened is I initially changed my site URL. Now whats happened is that whenever someone clicks on my blog name (when they see my comments on another post) they get a broken link to the old URL. If anyone knows how to fix this that would be great.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      You may want to try resaving your new url and resaving your permalinks in case that was cached somewhere

      Admin

  13. Jp says

    Hi,

    Velvet blues worked great for regular images in posts but not featured images. Do you know about a plugin that supports changing featured images URLs? I’m storing images in a different server in the new version of my site.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      It should also update featured images, you may want to reach out to the plugin’s support if it is not updating properly.

      Admin

  14. John Doe says

    Does not work for me. However, I may be trying to do something this plugin does not support – moving from non-www to www subdomain.

  15. Asrar says

    Hi Everyone
    i want to upload my local wordpress site to online, but when i download all the files and want to change the links (localhost/websitename/ ) there is no such links available except two links. As there must be many lins to be changes bu i dont see . Why the links are missing ?
    anyone knows ?

  16. Yogi says

    The Velvet Blues Update URLs plugin is excellent. I want to share my experience with it. After i did my URL change with it. I still see the error on opening all post. I solved it by going to “Settings > Permalinks” section and then saved my permalinks once more by clicking the “Save Changes” button. This solved my problem and will also solve yours if you still get some error.

  17. Jhavinder says

    I am using the same domain but i have changed my hosting. After that my all images in post are not showing. How can i fix this problem.

  18. Shawn Rebelo says

    Velvet blues is great, but misses one thing. Does not change URL’s in options if URL’s are there. Say for Custom CSS. Also, anyone have issues of you changing the URL’s, see changes in the DB. But when you go edit the page, they are still say http, when they should be https? Seems to only happen with image URL’s.

  19. jan says

    I used this wonderful plugin in the past, always worked fine. But this time it only changed the full URL links, not the internal links that don’t include the full URL. Any ideas on how to fix this?

  20. Blessing Mashoko says

    I had the same issue I just changed my permalink settings to “plain” and changed back to the permalink setting I was using and somehow it works.

  21. Priscilla says

    The plugin hasn’t been supported in over 1 year and is untested with WP version 4.9.1. Nevertheless, I gave it a try, but unsurprisingly, it didn’t work, giving a MySQL server error. So much for a once very good plugin that the developer decides to abandon!

  22. Kokila says

    Post update of URL, images are not showing up properly in wordpress admin site. Please comment on this and also URL update didn’t happen for images on Media folder

  23. Gautam Sharma says

    After migrating from local to server, I’m getting 404-File not found error. Only my Home Page is loading, rest are not working, I have changed the permalinks also! Please help…

  24. Emma Booth says

    Is there anyway I can avoid links from social media breaking once I have done a re-direct?

    I’m trying to re-direct from a wordpress.com blog to a blog on a new domain on wordpress.org, however I’m concerned previous links in tweets and linkedIn posts will break….any way to avoid this?)

  25. Neha Prajapati says

    I changed my server keeping same web URL. and properly configured.
    But why my all old post r showing in google search with page not found.
    What to do??

  26. Peter says

    I use Velvet Blues with very good results. However, it is important to note that VB will not change URL in widgets or if there are URLs in your CSS code. These will need to be manually changed.

  27. Jeremy says

    In response to ADITYA’s comment about this being a substitute for 301 redirects.

    I would say that a find and replace plugin is NOT a substitute for 301 redirects. 301 redirects are still valuable from an SEO standpoint, as well as for users who may have bookmarked or are accustomed to using your old domain.

    Just using this plugin would result in your users hitting an old site that is no longer being maintained or a site that’s been taken offline.

    On a personal note, I definitely recommend Migrate DB Pro for this type of activity. It’s worth the money, if you’re doing local development.

  28. Jennifer says

    Hi,

    Does this plug in also work for updating links that are embedded inside tables that I created with TablePress? I also have a number of URLs as part of image descriptions for photos that I added using FooGallery, and i assume that these are stored inside the database, rather than in the HTML for the pages – is Velvet Blues able to update these as well, or do I need a different plug in for that task? My site (which I am going to move from its current directory to a subdirectory of my site that I want to use for an add-on domain) contains about 13.500 images and 500 tables, and it would be extremely tedious to check every single one for links, and then manually replace them with the new URL.

    Thanks.

  29. Vidy says

    Cool plugin and great tutorial, I’ve just migrate my domain and I have 300 post. I searched exactly the plugin u reviewed. Thanks for your help. I didn’t needed to replace my internal link one by one.

  30. Michelle Z. says

    Question: I updated my theme, and the blogroll is now on a secondary page, when it used to be on the homepage. So I have the same url but different path. Check it out:

    Old Link (we want to maintain these):

    New Link:

    I tried adjusting the permalinks but its not working…yet. Any ideas?

    Thanks so much!

  31. Sourabh Saraf says

    Thanks for the wonderful tut , i usually go for backupbuddy for my migration but sometimes due to server limitations backupbuddy doesnt work . This trick comes handy everytime i manually migrate wordpress and works like a charm .
    cheers
    Sourabh

  32. Sonali says

    My old and new site urls are the same since I migrated my site content from wordpress.com to wordpress.org. Not sure how to use this and get those errors fixed…Please advice! Thanks!

  33. Melissa says

    I used this plugin after migrating from Blogger to WordPress. None of my image URLs are updating…so none of my images are currently showing on my blog (www.fitchocoholic.com). Can anyone help me with this? I’m freaking out!

  34. jatinder says

    I installed this plugin and is working perfectly.

    But my question is, why doest it work on the content build using Content Builder plugins like Visual composer or Muffin tool. i have certain hard-coded links it does change those link.

    Any comments??

    • Josh says

      Hi Jatinder.
      The reason this plugin doesn’t work for content inside Visual Composer is because Visual Composer stores the links in a strange way. If you click on “Classic Mode” in Visual Composer you’ll see that links don’t look like proper URLs.

      For example, I have a VC button that points to this link:

      example.com/services/adwords/

      But in Classic Mode I can see that the link looks like this:
      http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2Fservices%2Fadwords%2F

      So this will be why Velvet Blues doesn’t change these links.

      To fix the content, without having to manually edit every link, you’ll need to run another search and replace plugin and search for the urls using this structure.

      • Jeremy says

        Good tip, ive been trying to work this out for a while now, didn’t even occur to me that the url would have been done like that. Hooray.

  35. marcelo araujo says

    hi, cool post. some media does not change. specifically the media that is added in theme options. any command to change all urls in all database? i change mine from .org/site for .org.br/site
    tks.

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