About this plugin
The Easy Search Replace plugin lets you find and replace any text, HTML, or URL across your WordPress site in real time — without editing files or touching the database.
It’s the safest way to do search and replace on front-end output. Update branding, fix old links, swap outdated content, or remove footer credit with a few clicks.
Target replacements precisely with:
- Post Types (Posts, Pages, WooCommerce Products, any CPT)
- Specific Post IDs (comma separated)
- Exact URLs (one per line)
Why it’s safe:
All changes are applied dynamically at render time. Your posts, pages, and database stay untouched. Disable the plugin or toggle a rule off and your original content is back instantly.
Popular use cases
- Remove footer credit — delete or replace any theme footer text, copyright notice, or “Powered by” link.
- Replace company names — rebranding? Update every mention of your old name site-wide in seconds.
- Fix old links — swap broken URLs, redirect HTTP → HTTPS links, or update moved resources.
- WooCommerce text changes — rename “Add to cart” buttons, change checkout labels, or translate WooCommerce strings without code.
- Hide plugin or theme branding — remove “Built with Elementor”, “Jetpack stats”, or any injected text.
- Conditional content — show different text to logged-in users, mobile visitors, or during specific date ranges (Pro).
Features
Free version (up to 10 rules — existing installs with more keep them all):
- Real-time search and replace for text, HTML, and URLs — no database changes.
- Enable or disable each rule with a toggle (no need to delete and recreate).
- Limit rules by post type, post ID, or URL (one per line).
- Case-insensitive matching (Ignore Case option).
- “ Don’t match if page contains ” safety switch — add a marker to any page you want to leave untouched.
- Configurable “Skip HTML tags” setting — protect <script>, <style>, or any tag from being modified.
- Multiple rules, executed in the order you define.
- Lightweight: buffer filtering only starts if you have active rules.
Pro features ( Easy Search Replace Pro ):
- CSS selector targeting — restrict replacements to elements matching.footer, #main, h1, or any CSS selector. Inspect the element in your browser and paste the class or ID. Perfect for removing footer credits from a specific element without affecting the rest of your page.
- Regex patterns — full PHP regex with smart defaults.. matches newlines and patterns are UTF-8 aware by default. Write <div class="x">.*?unwanted.*?</div> and it just works.
- Match text between two markers — replace everything between a “starts with” and “ends with” snippet without writing regex. Safer because it stops at the first end marker.
- Scheduled rules — activate rules only within specific date ranges, times of day, or weekdays. Perfect for seasonal banners, holiday promotions, or timed content swaps.
- Audience & device targeting — show different replacements for logged-in users vs guests, target specific user roles, or serve different content to desktop, mobile, or tablet visitors.
- Exclusion rules — apply a rule everywhere EXCEPT specific post types, post IDs, or URLs.
- Import / Export — export rules as JSON or CSV for backups. Bulk import hundreds of rules at once from CSV for agency migrations.
- Live Preview — test any rule against a real page (even before you save it) and see exactly how many matches it will make, so you’re never guessing.
- Rule Analytics — see how many times each rule has actually matched, right in the Analytics tab. Spot rules that never fire and clean them up.
- Visual selector picker — click an element on your own site and Easy Search Replace fills in its CSS selector for you — no browser dev tools or CSS knowledge required.
- Recipe Library — one-click templates for common jobs like removing “Powered by WordPress”, renaming WooCommerce buttons, or forcing HTTPS links. Each recipe is added disabled so you can review it first.
- Regex Tester — write and test regular expressions inside the plugin with live match highlighting before you apply them to your live site.
- Rule Sync between sites — pull your rules from one site into another with a secure sync key. Perfect for agencies keeping staging and production in step.
- Cache-Aware Mode — scheduled, role, and device rules keep working with page caching, and known caches (WP Rocket, LiteSpeed, and more) are purged automatically when you change a rule.
- Debug badge — logged-in admins see a small “ESR” badge listing which rules ran on the current page, making troubleshooting effortless.
- Unlimited rules — the free version covers up to 10 rules; Pro removes the cap entirely.
Usage
- Open Settings → Easy Search Replace.
- Find: Enter the text/HTML/URL to search.
- Replace with: Enter the replacement (leave empty to remove — great for footer credits).
- (Optional) Limit by Post Types, Post IDs, or URLs (one per line).
- Enable Ignore case if needed.
- Add multiple rules and Save Changes.
io/docs/easy-search-replace
Examples
Replace text globally
Find: Old Company
Replace: New Company
Remove footer credit
Find: Powered by MyTheme
Replace: (leave empty)
Remove “Powered by WordPress”
Find: Powered by WordPress
Replace: (leave empty)
site-info in Pro for precision)
Replace URL site-wide
com
com
Change WooCommerce button text
Find: Add to cart
Replace: Buy now
Only on specific posts
Find: Coming Soon
Replace: Launching Now
Post IDs: 25,47,88
Case-insensitive
Enable Ignore case to match “WordPress”, “wordpress”, “WORDPRESS”, etc.
Privacy
The free version of Easy Search Replace collects no data and makes no external connections — it runs in anonymous mode.
Licensing for the Pro edition is handled by Freemius. When you activate a Pro license, Freemius records only the site URL needed to bind the license to your site; any diagnostic data is optional and never shared without your explicit consent.
No site content, emails, IP addresses, usernames, or passwords are ever collected.