WordPress Tutorials

phpMyAdmin lets you run SQL queries directly against a MySQL or MariaDB database. One common use is finding and replacing a URL or text string in a specific table column. This can be fast, but a broad UPDATE query changes data immediately, so first preview the matches and create a verified database backup.

This guide shows the basic SQL REPLACE() function, a safer preview-first workflow, and an example for WordPress post content. For a whole-site WordPress migration, prefer WP-CLI's serialized-data-aware search-replace command or a reputable migration tool rather than running blind replacements across arbitrary tables.

If WordPress displays “The uploaded file exceeds the upload_max_filesize directive in php.ini”, PHP is rejecting the upload because the file is larger than the configured limit. The fix is to change the PHP upload settings used by your website, then check any additional limits imposed by WordPress, your web server, or your hosting provider.

The correct method depends on your hosting setup. Use your host's PHP settings editor when available; otherwise, ask your hosting provider which configuration file applies to your domain. Editing a theme's functions.php file will not reliably change PHP upload limits.

WordPress normally displays your latest blog posts on the front page. If you would rather greet visitors with a custom landing page, portfolio, or introduction, you can assign a published WordPress Page as your static homepage and keep your blog posts on a separate page.

This setting changes what visitors see at your site's home address. It does not convert posts into pages or remove your blog. Your posts remain published and can appear on the separate Posts page.

Large or uneven gaps between words in a WordPress post are often caused by CSS text justification. When a paragraph uses text-align: justify, the browser stretches spaces so each line reaches both edges of its text container. This can look awkward in narrow columns, on mobile screens, or in paragraphs with short lines.

This issue is controlled by your theme's CSS, not by WordPress post content itself. The original problem described here appeared in the old Kubrick theme, but the same CSS behavior can occur with modern themes.

You can display a banner on one WordPress page without showing it across your entire site. The best method depends on whether the banner is simply part of the page content or needs to be controlled by a reusable page template.

This guide explains how to update WordPress manually when the dashboard update fails or you need to replace core files yourself. For most sites, the built-in Dashboard → Updates process is the safer and easier first choice. A manual update can cause downtime or data loss if files are replaced incorrectly, so make a verified backup before proceeding.

This guide explains how to place Google AdSense ads between posts on a WordPress blog index or archive page. The original method was written for older classic WordPress themes, so the template names and markup may not match modern themes such as Astra.

For current WordPress sites, make changes in a child theme or use a maintained ad-management solution rather than editing the parent theme. Back up the site first and test the placement on desktop and mobile. Keep ads clearly distinguishable from post content and navigation, and follow Google's current AdSense ad placement policies.

If you want to place ads on category archive pages instead, see How to Add AdSense Ads Between Posts on WordPress Category Pages.

Which Image Text Matters for SEO? When optimizing images for SEO, it's not always clear whether you should focus on alt text, figcaption, title attributes, or all of the above. This article breaks down what matters most, especially for Google Image search and featured snippets.

If image title attributes you entered in WordPress are missing from the rendered HTML, your theme or an image filter may be removing them. I ran into this issue while working with the Astra theme and found a way to add the attributes back to images generated from the WordPress Media Library.\r\n\r\nOne important distinction: an image title attribute is not a substitute for descriptive alt text and should not be added just to improve SEO. The title attribute may appear as a tooltip in some browsers, while useful alt text supports accessibility and helps search engines understand an image.

Want to show more than 15 recent posts in your WordPress sidebar? The old 15-post limit described in this tutorial applied to earlier versions of WordPress. Current WordPress versions let you set the number of posts in the built-in Recent Posts widget, so check the widget settings first. If you need to enforce a specific number or the setting is being overridden, you can use a small filter in a site-specific plugin or a child theme instead of editing WordPress core files.

Are you looking to disable WordPress plugin update notifications? Want to hide update notices for a specific plugin or remove plugin update notifications entirely? This simple solution explains how to disable WordPress plugin update notifications safely using code, including single plugins, multiple plugins, or disabling them globally.

This method works by filtering the WordPress update transient and is commonly used for premium plugins, custom builds, staging environments, or controlled update workflows.

I can't recall how many times I have been asked by numerous people how to remove the "Comments are Closed" text from the bottom of WordPress posts. So, I have decided to write a quick tutorial on the subject. The following tutorial explains how to remove the Comment option and Comments are Closed text from being made available on your posts. One common request is how to remove specific comments from text that might clutter the appearance of your site. By following the steps laid out in this tutorial, you'll not only streamline your post's design but also enhance the user experience. This will allow your content to shine without unnecessary distractions.

I've always enjoyed using WordPress blogging software from the day I first installed it. It's simple to work with, is well structured and contains an easy to navigate admin menu. WordPress includes a default template called Kubrick that contains a great simple base design to work with.

How to Limit or Disable WordPress Post Revisions: WordPress post revisions are designed to protect your work by saving past versions of every post and page. In theory, this is a great safety net. In practice, especially on long running sites, revisions can quietly grow into thousands of extra database rows, bloating backups, slowing queries, and making your admin experience feel cluttered. One effective way to manage this issue is to delete post revisions in WordPress, reducing unnecessary clutter and optimizing your database. This can help speed up your site's performance and streamline data management. Regular maintenance and careful configuration can ensure that you're benefiting from WordPress's features without experiencing the downsides of excessive revisions.

How to Display More Than 15 Recent Posts in WordPress: If you want to display more than 15 recent posts in WordPress, the good news is that current versions of WordPress no longer require the old 15 post limit workaround. The built in Recent Posts widget now allows you to enter the number of posts you want to display. If you want to show 20, 25, or another number of recent posts, you can usually set that directly in the widget settings.

If you need to force the Recent Posts widget to display a specific number of posts, you can also use a WordPress filter instead of modifying WordPress core files.

This tutorial covers both approaches:

• Modern method: Use the widget_posts_args filter.
• Simple method: Set the number directly in the Recent Posts widget.
• Legacy method: The original WordPress 2.8-era technique for changing the old 15-post limit in wp-includes.

Changing the default WordPress admin login username: By default, WordPress installations use the admin username. The admin account provides access to the WordPress backend and all characteristics of the installation. Since this is well known, it can become a security vulnerability. A hacker can easily perform a brute force attack on the account to retrieve the WordPress admin login password. To enhance security, it’s crucial to change wordpress username securely and ensure that it is not easily guessable. Implementing strong, unique usernames alongside complex passwords can significantly decrease the risk of unauthorized access. Additionally, utilizing two-factor authentication provides an extra layer of protection for your WordPress site.

How to Keep WordPress Classic Editor from Defaulting to Text Mode in PHP 8: Are you facing an issue where the WordPress Classic Editor defaults to text mode after updating to PHP 8? You're not alone! Many users prefer the visual editor for its easy to use WYSIWYG interface, and this unexpected change can be frustrating.

In this tutorial, we will be creating a CSS pressed button effect. This button will have the appearance of being depressed and will include an option to stay stuck when clicked. The entire process is written for beginners and makes for a simple way to begin digging into and learning style modifications.

WordPress Appearance Editor Menu Option is Missing, Recently, I noticed that the option to edit my theme files directly from the WordPress dashboard had disappeared. If your Appearance > Editor link is missing, don't panic! The cause, in my case, was a setting inside iThemes Security that disables the file editor for security reasons. Here's exactly how I fixed it.

WordPress Disable Image Attachment Pages. In the following simple solution, I show you one way to remove or prevent attachment pages from appearing for every image attachment you add to WordPress. Because WordPress stores attached image data in the database as a Post Type, a URL is automatically created for each image.

Need to replace an old URL, domain, or repeated phrase across WordPress content? You can use a search-and-replace tool, WP-CLI, or a direct SQL query. The safest method depends on what you're changing: WP-CLI and reputable WordPress migration tools are generally better for site-wide changes because they can handle serialized data. A basic SQL REPLACE() query only changes the specific column and table you target.

This guide shows how to preview and replace text in post content with phpMyAdmin, explains the limitations of direct SQL, and includes a safer WP-CLI workflow. Always take a fresh database backup before changing production data.

Fixing the "Allowed Memory Size Exhausted" Fatal Error When Upgrading WordPress: When attempting to upgrade WordPress, you might encounter a Fatal error like we did on one of our WordPress installs. This usually happens during automatic upgrades (via the dashboard) on sites with many posts, heavy plugins, or large themes. The error typically appears as:

Need to bulk delete WordPress comments fast? If your site has hundreds or thousands of spam or pending comments, removing them manually through the WordPress dashboard can take a long time.

This guide shows you how to delete WordPress comments directly from your database using phpMyAdmin. When used correctly, this method can remove large amounts of comments in seconds.

WordPress autosave protects your work by saving drafts while you edit. If frequent saves are interrupting your workflow, you can adjust the autosave interval or, in limited cases, disable the Classic Editor autosave script. Increasing the interval is usually the safer choice because disabling autosave can mean losing edits after a browser crash, connection failure, or unexpected logout.

This guide explains the difference between Classic Editor autosave and the Block Editor's recovery features, how to change the interval, and what to know before disabling anything. The examples belong in a small site specific plugin, a must-use plugin, or your child theme, not in WordPress core files.

AdSense WordPress Shortcode: In this guide, I will show you how to create a WordPress shortcode that allows you to insert Google AdSense ads directly into posts or pages while writing content in WordPress.

Using a shortcode gives you precise control over ad placement without hardcoding ads into templates. This approach works with modern, responsive AdSense code and is compatible with current versions of WordPress.

Update Copyright Date in WordPress: In this quick guide, I will show you how to automatically update your WordPress copyright year using a small PHP code snippet. Once added, your site will always display the current year without you ever needing to update it manually again.

This is especially useful if you want your footer to show a range like "2006–2026" and keep it accurate as time goes on.

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at... If your receiving an error like this in your web browser just after trying to edit a file, the culprit is most likely that there are spaces, misc characters or newlines either just before an opening <?php tag or right after a closing ?> tag. In WordPress, the problem may appear from a corrupt wp-config.php file. However, the problem can occur in other files as well.

How to Remove the Date from WordPress Permalinks: Many WordPress sites historically used the day and name permalink structure (/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/) for posts. While this was popular for professional blogging in the past, modern SEO best practices recommend using simple post name (/%postname%/) or category and post name based URLs. Removing dates from your URLs helps improve readability, click-through rates, and long-term SEO value.

How to Embed PDF Files in WordPress? Embedding PDF files in WordPress is easy using the built-in tools, without plugins. You can also use the classic HTML embed code if needed.

Change the default WordPress admin login username: As I have previously mentioned, new WordPress installations, by default, use admin for the administrator username. This admin account provides access to the WordPress backend and grants access to all aspects of the WordPress installation. Since the default administrator login (admin) is well known, this can become a security vulnerability. A hacker could perform a brute force attack on the account and retrieve your WordPress admin login password, potentially compromising your site.

Do you want to change the excerpt length in WordPress? Whether you want to show more or less content in your post previews, it's easy to customize the the_excerpt() function. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to increase or decrease the WordPress excerpt length by editing your theme's functions.php file.

How to delete WordPress Post Revisions: The following simple solution covers how I delete or remove old post revisions from the SQL database. Back when WordPress 2.6 was rolled out, it introduced a new feature called post revisions. For sites with a lot of posts, this feature can really clutter up the database, at least with how it works in stock form.

How to Increase the Maximum Width of Uploaded Images in WordPress. By default, WordPress limits the maximum width of uploaded images (especially when inserted using the "Full Size" option in the editor). Historically, this default width was set to around 500px in earlier versions like WordPress 2.5, which made sense for narrow post layouts.

However, many modern themes use wider content areas (e.g. 700–1200px wide), and you may want your full-size images to take full advantage of that space. In this tutorial, we'll show you how to increase the maximum display width of uploaded images in WordPress by setting the global $content_width value.

How to Hide WordPress Categories: In the following simple solution, I show you how to keep a selection of categories from displaying on your WordPress pages and posts. This can be useful if you no longer wish to use or display specific categories on your site, but have already been indexed for the category content from search engines such as Google and Bing. Upon completion of this tutorial, the permalink structure of the hidden categories are still made available to the search engines, however, the categories you have chosen to hide are no longer prominently displayed on your blog to the visitor.

How to Fix WordPress Permalinks in XAMPP: If your WordPress URLs look like http://localhost/?p=2 instead of clean links like http://localhost/my-post, it's usually because mod_rewrite is not enabled or Apache is ignoring your .htaccess file. The following steps will help you enable permalinks and .htaccess support in XAMPP.

How to add a second sidebar widget for use on separate pages or posts: The following tutorial covers the process of building a second widget compatible sidebar that can be used on specific pages or posts. Using a different WordPress sidebar for pages and posts allows the user to display different sidebar content on a given post or page. In addition, the user could add the duplicate sidebar widgets plugin to add the same widget content to both sidebars.

The following simple custom WordPress login page solution is for those of you who want to customize and further beautify the Login screen, tailoring it to your sites look and feel. You might want to do this if you have a lot of registered members and don't want them to get bored with the default Login window. If you are logging into multiple sites, making this modification can help differentiate your sites, making it easier to keep track of which one your logging into.

How to Add Related Posts to WordPress (Modern Method) – Displaying related posts on your blog is a great way to keep readers engaged and increase page views. When visitors see additional content related to the article they are reading, they are far more likely to continue browsing your site.

Years ago, many WordPress users relied on the Ultimate Tag Warrior (UTW) plugin to display keyword related posts. However, modern versions of WordPress now include built in tagging, and there are much easier ways to display related posts without using outdated plugins.

This guide explains both the original UTW method (for historical reference) and a modern way to display related posts using WordPress tags.

After upgrading, restoring a database or moving a WordPress site, you may encounter strange characters in your WordPress posts text. It appears to be a character set or charset encoding problem where apostrophes, hyphens, quotation marks and dashes appear in posts and pages as strange characters like ’‚?. The symptoms are obvious. WordPress posts and pages suddenly contain garbled, weird, or strange characters.

Removing the WordPress post per page limit: By default, WordPress posts are limited based on the posts_per_page setting. Making many of your older posts incredibly hard to find for both search engines and readers. Like many readers, I hate (pagination) having to read through pages of posts in a category one page at a time. So I decided to find a way to make every post within any given category show up on a single category page eliminating the need to flip through pages. In the following tutorial, I'll explain how this is accomplished.

At some point in time, nearly every WordPress Blogger will experience a broken WordPress blog due to the recent activation of a non compatible plugin. A broken plugin can wreak all sorts of havoc on a WordPress blog including the inability to access the WordPress administration panel. In most cases, when a blog breaks, the fix is fairly simple.

The following tutorial outlines a few WordPress quick fixes for a blogger to try when encountering the almost inevitable incompatible WordPress plugin problem that is causing site errors or limited blog access.

New WordPress Post is not showing up or displaying for some people: I get this question quite frequently and in almost every case, the Post is flagged as Private. The reason most bloggers think it has been posted and is viewable to the public is because private posts are viewable to those that are logged in with administration access rights and typically after a blogger writes and publishes a post, they go View site without logging out. So, the post shows up for them as the browse the site.

As a WordPress user, you may have noticed that you can insert a more tag to your posts so that only the text before this tag appears on the archive or category pages. By using the more tag, more post entries can appear on each page while still utilizing an introductory paragraph for each post. Then, when a visitor clicks on the more tag, they are sent to the full post where they can continue to read the article. However, the default WordPress more tag simply says (more...). In the following article, I explain how to change the more tag text to a text that is more meaningful like "click here to read on!"

WordPress includes many helpful features that bloggers often overlook. One such feature is the ability to schedule posts using the Post Timestamp (now known as the Publish date). I use this feature during vacations, holidays, or busy weeks, it allows posts to go live automatically at a future time while I'm away from the computer.

The following article explains how to turn off WordPress trackbacks and pingbacks. In most cases, a WordPress Blog author might decide to disable comments if they are getting an overwhelming amount of spam. However, sometimes the spam can still get through in the form of trackbacks or pingbacks, enabling an abusive user to spam links as comments on the affected blog. Luckily this feature can be easily turned off and or totally eliminated entirely from your WordPress blog in just a few steps.

This article explains how to run a static front or home page while still resuming the chronological blog posts on another page. This basically allows a user to have both a Website and chronological Blog of the same content. For example if you write a page titled blog, it would be accessible separately at www.yoursite.com/blog. This article assumes that you've already set your site to use a static front page using WordPress.

Do you publish WordPress posts on a regular basis which use the same structure? Maybe you have a signature or picture you would like to add to every post? You can eliminate the time spent going back and forth between posts doing copy and paste functions by simply creating a post template. A post template can automatically add text, images or code to every new post you create. Currently, I don't use a WordPress post template on this site. However, I have set it up for others who use specific images and signatures that need to be added to the content of every post.

Adding addtional buttons or tools to WordPress WYSIWYG TinyMCE visual editor: Like most people, you probably enjoy using the built in TinyMCE visual editor that is included with WordPress. However, by default the included WYSIWYG editor lacks some essential tools like font color, font size, font family and more. The good news is that most of these tools are already included in WordPress but are simply not active. The following tutorial shows you how to add additional buttons to include these tools to your WordPress visual editor.

Learn how to safely add font color in WordPress using Gutenberg, the Classic Editor with a plugin, or custom CSS, no core file edits required. This tutorial covers all three methods.

WordPress lets you control whether visitors can comment on new posts and on content that has already been published. You can change the default for future posts, bulk-edit existing posts, or enable comments on selected articles. The safest approach is to use the WordPress dashboard rather than making broad database changes.

This article documents an older method for displaying Google AdSense for Search results on a WordPress page. Treat it as a legacy reference, not a current step-by-step setup guide: AdSense product availability and account options can change, and the old custom template and downloadable file may not be compatible with modern WordPress themes. Before attempting this, confirm that your AdSense account still offers the relevant search-ad product and use the code and instructions shown in your own account.