Changing The Site URL

Changing the URL directly in the database

If you know how to access phpMyAdmin on your host, then you can edit these values directly to get you up and running again.

  1. Backup your database and save the copy off-site.
  2. Login to phpMyAdmin.
  3. Click the link to your Databases.
  4. A list of your databases will appear. Choose the one that is your DynamicSite database.
  5. All the tables in your database will appear on the screen.
  6. From the list, look for wp_options. Note: The table prefix of wp_ may be different if you changed it when installing.
  7. Click on the small icon indicated as Browse.
  8. A screen will open with a list of the fields within the wp_options table.
  9. Under the field option_name, scroll down and look for siteurl.
  10. Click the Edit Field icon which usually is found at the far left at the beginning of the row.
  11. The Edit Field window will appear.
  12. In the input box for option_value, carefully change the URL information to the new address.
  13. Verify this is correct and click Go to save the information.
  14. You should be returned to your wp_options table.
  15. Look for the home field in the table and click Edit Field. Note There are several pages of tables inside wp_options. Look for the >symbol to page through them.
  16. In the input box for option_value, carefully change the URL information to the new address.
  17. Verify this is correct and click Go to save the information.

Moving Sites

When moving sites from one location to another, it is sometimes necessary to manually modify data in the database to make the new site URL information to be recognized properly. Many tools exist to assist with this, and those should generally be used instead of manual modifications.

This is presented here as information only. This data may not be complete or accurate.

Altering Table Prefixes

Like many DynamicSite administrators, you may be running several DynamicSite installations off of one database using various wp-config.php hacks. Many of these hacks involve dynamically setting table prefixes, and if you do end up altering your table prefix, you must update several entries within the prefix_usermeta table as well.

As in the above section, remember that SQL changes are permanent and so you should back up your database first:

If you are changing table prefixes for a site, then remember to alter the table prefix in the usermeta tables as well. This will allow the new site to properly recognize user permissions from the old site.

UPDATE `newprefix_usermeta` SET `meta_key` = REPLACE( `meta_key` , 'oldprefix_', 'newprefix_' );

Changing Template Files

In your Theme, open each template file and search for any manually entered references to your old domain name and replace it with the new one. Look for specific hand coded links you may have entered on the various template files such as the sidebar.php and footer.php.

DynamicSite uses a template tag called bloginfo() to automatically generate your site address from information entered in your Administration > Settings > General panel. The tag in your template files will not have to be modified.

Changing the Config file

You will need to update your DynamicSite configuration file if your database has moved or changed in certain ways.

  1. You will only need to modify the config file if:
    1. your database has moved to another server and is not running on your localhost
    2. you have renamed your database
    3. you have changed the database user name
  2. “‘Make a backup copy of your wp-config.php file.'”
  3. Open the wp-config.php file in a text editor.
  4. Review its contents. In particular, you are looking for the database host entry.
  5. Save the file.

At this point, your DynamicSite blog should be working.

Verify the Profile

  1. In your Administration Panels go to Settings > General . Here you will verify that the changes you made in Changing the URL above, are correct.
  2. Verify that the reference in your DynamicSite Address (URL) contains the new address.
  3. Verify that the reference in your Site Address (URL) contains the new address.
  4. If you have made changes, click Save Changes.

Changing the .htaccess file

After changing the information in your Administration > Settings > General panel, you will need to update your .htaccess file if you are using Permalinks or any rewrites or redirects.

  1. Make a backup copy of your .htaccess file. This is not a recommendation but a requirement.
  2. Open the .htaccess file in a text editor.
  3. Review its contents, looking for any custom rewrites or redirects you entered. Copy these to another text file for safe keeping.
  4. Close the file.
  5. Follow the instructions on the Permalinks SubPanel for updating your Permalinks to the .htaccess file.
  6. Open the new .htaccess file and check to see if your custom rewrites and redirects are still there. If not, copy them from the saved file and paste them into the new .htaccess file.
  7. Make any changes necessary in those custom rewrites and redirects to reflect the new site address.
  8. Save the file.
  9. Test those redirects to ensure they are working.

If you make a mistake, you can Restoring Your Database From Backup from your backup and try this again. So make sure it is right the first time.

Additional items of note

There are other things you may wish to change in order to correct URLs when moving sites.

  1. Images link: image links are stored in “post_content” in the wp_posts table. You can use the similar code above to update image links.
  2. wp_options: Besides the “siteurl” and “home” items mentioned above, there are other option_value which also need revision, such as “upload path”, and some plugin items (depends on what you’ve installed, such as widgets, stats, DMSGuestbook, sitemap, etc.)
  3. To fix widgets that contain outdated URL’s, you may edit them in Dashboard / Appearance / Widgets.
  4. Do a FULL database search for any items left. MAKE SURE you know what you are changing. and go through each item for possible improper replacement.
  5. If you a running a network / have multiple sites, you will need to replace instances of the URL in the database. They are stored in many tables, including each one of the sites (blogs). Be careful in what you replace and be sure you know the meaning of the field before changing it. See the Important GUID note below for an example of what not to change.
  6. Note, if you find your old url in the database options table under ‘dashboard_incoming_links’, you can ignore or delete that option. It’s unused.

Important GUID Note

When doing the above and changing the URLs directly in the database, you will come across instances of the URL being located in the “guid” column in the wp_posts tables.

It is critical that you do NOT change the contents of this field.

The term “GUID” stands for “Globally Unique Identifier”. It is a field that is intended to hold an identifier for the post which a) is unique across the whole of space and time and b) never, ever changes. The GUID field is primarily used to create the DynamicSite feeds.

When a feed-reader is reading feeds, it uses the contents of the GUID field to know whether or not it has displayed a particular item before. It does this in one of various ways, but the most common method is simply to store a list of GUID’s that it has already displayed and “marked as read” or similar.

Thus, changing the GUID will mean that many feedreaders will suddenly display your content in the user’s reader again as if it was new content, possibly annoying your users.

In order for the GUID field to be “globally” unique, it is an accepted convention that the URL or some representation of the URL is used. Thus, if you own example.com, then you’re the only one using example.com and thus it’s unique to you and your site. This is why DynamicSite uses the permalink, or some form thereof, for the GUID.

However, the second part of that is that the GUID must never change. Even if you shift domains around, the post is still the same post, even in a new location. Feed readers being shifted to your new feeds when you change URLs should still know that they’ve read some of your posts before, and thus the GUID must remain unchanged.

Never, ever, change the contents of the GUID column, under any circumstances.

NB: If the default uploads folder needs to be changed to a different location, then any media URLs will need to be changed in the post_content column of the posts table. For example, if the default uploads folder is changing from my-content/uploads to images:

UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = REPLACE(post_content,'www.domain.com/wp-content/uploads','www.domain.com/images');