In this post, we show you how to bulk edit redirection links for pages, posts, or any other custom post type.
Page Links To allows you to convert WordPress page URLs into customized URLs; it works with posts and custom post types as well. You can create new content and use the old URLs to redirect people to the new content, since sometimes old URLs are well ranked on Google.
The problem is that sometimes we want to edit hundreds of pages, for example, and have to open them one by one in order to apply changes to them. We need lots of tabs, lots of clicks, and lots of hours… and that’s tedious and boring!
Therefore, in this post, we’ll use the WP Sheet Editor plugin to bulk edit redirection links.
WP Sheet Editor
Use an intuitive spreadsheet inside WordPress to:
- View and edit posts, pages, or custom post types in a spreadsheet
- Bulk edit pages, posts, or custom post types
- Do advanced searches of your posts, pages, or custom post types quickly
- Import posts, pages, or custom post types from Excel, Google Sheets, etc.
- Download all items of any post type to a CSV file.
- Bulk edit fields generated by other plugins.
You can download the plugin here:
Download Posts, Pages, and Custom Post Types Spreadsheet Plugin – or – Check the features
Video Guide
Text Guide
Once you install and activate the plugin, you need to follow these steps to learn how to bulk edit page, post, and custom post type links.
1- Open the spreadsheet you’ll use
WP Sheet Editor allows you to create a spreadsheet for pages, posts, or any custom post type.
- To open the posts’ spreadsheet, go to WP Sheet Editor > Edit Posts.
- To open the pages spreadsheet, go to WP Sheet Editor > Edit Pages.
- To open a custom post type spreadsheet, see how to set up the spreadsheet.
In this tutorial, we’ll use the pages spreadsheet as an example.
This is how the pages will look displayed in the spreadsheet; every row is a page and every column is a field.
If you scroll to the right, you’ll see the fields added by Page Fields To:
- Links To: It shows the link to which users are redirected when they open this page.
- Links To Target: It shows the Open in New Tab checkbox.
2- Search for the pages you’ll edit
The Search tool allows you to filter the pages using any field as a search parameter. You can open it with one click; it’s on the toolbar.
Once you open the Search tool, you’ll find these search fields:
- Contains keyword: Enter any word and the plugin will filter all pages containing it in their titles.
- Author: Enter any author’s name and the plugin will filter all pages created by that person.
- Parent: Enter any parent page and the plugin will filter all pages with that parent page.
- Enable advanced filters: Tick this checkbox to open the advanced search filters.
Here’s an example of how to search for all the pages missing redirection link:
- Tick the Enable advanced filters checkbox.
- Field: Links To (_links_to)
- Operator: =
- Value: Leave this field empty.
- Click Run Search.
Once these search filters are applied, all the pages missing redirection links will be displayed in the spreadsheet.
3- How to edit redirection links using the spreadsheet
You can edit redirection links using the spreadsheet. You just need to use the following fields and values:
- Links To: Enter the links in this column.
- Links To Target: Enter the _blanc value to enable the Open in New Tab option.
- Click Save once you’re done.
With these simple steps, you’ll have edited the redirection links in hundreds of pages individually. You’ll save a lot of time because you don’t have to open the pages one by one.
4- How to bulk edit redirection links
WP Sheet Editor contains a Bulk Edit tool that allows you to edit any field in hundreds of pages. Therefore, after filtering the pages you’ll edit (step 2), you need to open that tool with one click; it’s on the toolbar.
In the following sub-sections we show you how to replace a specific redirection link with another in all the filtered pages and how to delete redirection links from all the filtered pages:
a) How to bulk replace redirection links
These are the values you need to select in the Bulk Edit tool in order to replace a specific redirection link in all the filtered pages:
- Select the rows that you want to update: Edit all the rows from my current search
- What field do you want to edit: Links To
- Select type of edit: Replace
- Replace this: Enter the old link.
- With this: Enter the new link.
- Click Execute Now.
b) How to bulk delete a specific redirection link
If you want to delete a specific redirection link from all the filtered pages, you need to select the following values:
- Select the rows that you want to update: Edit all the rows from my current search
- What field do you want to edit: Links To
- Select type of edit: Replace
- Replace this: Enter the old link.
- With this: Leave this field empty.
- Click Execute Now.
c) How to bulk remove all redirection links
To delete all redirection links from all the filtered pages, you need to select the following values in the Bulk Edit tool:
- Select the rows that you want to update: Edit all the rows from my current search
- What field do you want to edit: Links To
- Select type of edit: Clear value
- Click Execute Now.
That’s really simple!
Editing redirection links from Page Links To plugin in hundreds of pages, posts or custom post types is really easy with WP Sheet Editor.
You don’t have to open each post or page to edit them and save changes hundreds of times. Just a few simple steps and everything is ready.
You can download the plugin here:
Download Posts, Pages, and Custom Post Types Spreadsheet Plugin – or – Check the features