bulk edit

  • Unknown's avatar
    tobygetsch · Member ·

    How can I edit posts / comments — in bulk?

    I recently merged several blogs and there are numerous broken links to old domains / URL’s. I’d like to edit with perhaps a find and replace — in bulk. I know how to search all of the above and manually edit individual links. I’ve done that for one old domain / URL. Now I still have a few more to go through and there are a lot that I’d like to change, so I’m curious if there is a way for me to do this.

    Example: I’d like to replace all “OldDomain1.com” and “OldDomain2.com” (etc.) with “CurrentDomain.com” for all posts and comments.

    Pages and links are not as much of a deal because there are usually only a few of those compared to dozens or hundreds or thousands of the others — which will be extremely time consuming to do this manually.

    Is this possible with some feature or tool or could you maybe guide me to a hack to do this?

    Thanks much! Your support has been splendid through the years.

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    thatrobyn · Member ·

    Hey Toby! While we don’t have a bulk edit feature, I do have a solution for you that is far less manual than having to change individual links one-by-one.

    Here is my suggestion:

    1. Register a new, test blog.
    2. Export your files from your old site.
    3. Run a find/replace within the XML file that you’ve exported from your old site. Rename it when you save it, so you’ll have a copy of the original export, and the edited export. That is simply so you have a decent backup.
    4. Import the edited XML file into the test blog.
    5. Confirm that everything looks as you wish. Make sure all your media has move over. This is a very important step!
    6. Empty your old site.
    7. Import the XML file into your old site. It should now be populated with all the same files, but with your amended links.
    8. The test blog can be deleted, or maintained as a private blog which can be a testing platform for you in the future.

    Let me know if you have any questions about this process. Thank so much and best of luck!

  • Unknown's avatar
    tobygetsch · Member ·

    Gotchya. Thanks. I was guessing that was going to be the answer. I’ll work on that and give it a go. Sounds much better than one by one manual link updating with copy/paste.

    Thanks!

  • Unknown's avatar
    tobygetsch · Member ·

    Ok… now upon checking this, it appears that a couple of the blogs that I previously exported and then imported did NOT include ALL of the media from the source — but did include SOME.

    Does the WP export include the media?

    The text on the Tools –> Export page in the dashboard is a little ambiguous because at the top it includes “media” but then in the actual export radio button, “media” is not mentioned in the WP XML option. Hmmm…

    Please advise.

  • Unknown's avatar
    thatrobyn · Member ·

    Hey Toby! I see that the export was from getsch.wordpress.com. Could you confirm which site you are importing your XML file TO? I can look further into this.

    It’s not unusual that some of your media may have to be reconnected manually, but if there is a dramatic amount of missing images, please let me know! Thanks so much.

  • Unknown's avatar
    tobygetsch · Member ·

    I am trying to merge several blogs TO getsch.wordpress.com. I did do exports from 4 different blogs just today, to have backups. The particular one that I am importing FROM is tobygetsch.wordpress.com. I have already done the import and all of those posts are included already. To do the cleanup I am trying the approach from your initial response. This means that now I am exporting FROM getsch.wordpress.com and I will delete the content currently in tobygetsch.wordpress.com and use that as a test.

    However, before doing this, I checked on the media files from the export / import that I had already done and noticed that not all of the media files from tobygetsch.wordpress.com were included when I imported into getsch.wordpress.com. That is what led me to ask about the files being included or not or why some but not all media files were included. I do see some “unconnected” media files from the source, but overall the number would be higher. Example: tobygetsch.wordpress.com has 40 attached and 6 unattached media files — however after importing into getsch.wordpress.com that target blog only has 30 some images in the media library.

    I did do a previous import from megadrivel.wordpress.com (or megadrivel.com custom domain) into getsch.wordpress.com and noticed missing media files, but I didn’t care much about those few posts. tobygetsch.wordpress.com is different because it has been a blog for many more years and has over 1,200 posts + comments, etc.

    I hope you can follow this. It makes sense to me, but I’m also the one working with all of these right now. Thanks for your help!

  • Unknown's avatar
    thatrobyn · Member ·

    Hi again, Toby!
    Before you do any deleting, could you provide me a couple samples of what is appearing on your source blog, but not the destination site. Links would be very helpful! I’d like to look at those, and then into your XML files.

    Thanks so much!

  • Unknown's avatar
    thatrobyn · Member ·

    Toby, Keep an eye out for a private email from me. I’ve run an export of your site and would like you to try this file as your next import. Thanks!

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