Database Search and Replace (www > http://www)

How to run a database search and replace...

...for URLs formatted "www.somesite.com", and format them as "http://www.somesite.com":

Run two search and replace queries:

Query 1:

  • find: href=\\\"www.
  • replace: href=\\\"http://www.

Query 2:

  • find: href=\\\'www.
  • replace: href=\\\'http://www.

Why Do We Have to Do it Like This? 

The HTML for the link www.somesite.com is encoded in the database as a href=\\\"www.somesite.com", so we have to include that encoding, otherwise it won't be found.