Ethereal Link Replacer is a lightweight, focused tool for changing links, URLs, and other text throughout your WordPress database. It is built for the common migration jobs: moving from HTTP to HTTPS, switching domains, or cleaning up an old CDN or media URL.
Unlike a plain SQL find-and-replace, this plugin correctly handles serialized data. It unpacks serialized arrays and objects (the format many themes and plugins use to store settings and page-builder content), replaces the text inside, and repacks it so your data stays valid.
Key features
- A safe two-step flow: Preview every change first, then Apply — the apply step is locked until you confirm you have a backup.
- Whole word only and Match case options, so searching “Unlock” need not touch “Unlocked”.
- Serialized-data aware, so page-builder and theme option data is not corrupted.
- A heads-up warning when matches are found inside page-builder or serialized data (e.g. Elementor), where a replacement could affect your layout.
- Search across posts, post meta, options, terms, term meta, and comments — you choose which.
- Optional regular-expression matching (the unsafe
/emodifier is blocked). - Batched processing to keep memory use low on large sites.
- Automatically clears caches after a change — for every major page builder and caching plugin — so edits show on the front end.
- A downloadable CSV log of every change.
- A WP-CLI command for scripted or large migrations.
- No tracking, no external requests, no ads, no upsells.
Who makes this
Ethereal Link Replacer is developed by Manuel Zela at Ethereal Web Solution. Plugin home page: etherealwebsolution.com/ethereal-link-replacer.
Important: back up first
This plugin edits your live database. Changes made in a real (non-dry-run) pass cannot be undone from within the plugin. Always take a complete database backup before running a live replacement, and preview with a dry run first.