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I work as a marketing lead in this company and we are trying to change our website URL. It’s currently [website.com](https://website.com) and they want it to be [websites.com](https://websites.com). They have access to the new URL and its currently redirecting to the website not but we want the URL to show as [websites.com](https://websites.com). The section for the WordPress and Site URL are greyed out and I have no idea how to access the root files or the wp-config that I keep seeing online.
What’s going on here and how can we make the change in domain? Thanks!
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If they are greyed out you should change the wp config, like you said yourself.
It can be found within the server of the hosting provider. They often offer a web based service to edit files. Otherwise allow you to access with ftp.
You should contact the hosting provider, they can help you get to the correct file.
You on WordPress.com?
Ask their support.
Well, as you’ve intimated in your post, you know that those fields are most likely greyed out because they are hard-coded in the wp-config file. Unfortunately, you’ll need access to the file system to edit this.
If you have the ability to add plugins, but not access the file system via SFTP or a hosting panel, then I would do the two following things to change the domain.
1. Use a file manager plugin (i.e. Advanced File Manager) to edit the wp-config file. Access the file and find the lines that are setting the domain. They’ll look like this:
`define(‘WP_HOME’,’https://example.com’);
define(‘WP_SITEURL’,’https://example.com’);`
Remove these two lines, and don’t change anything else.
2. Use another plugin like “Better Search Replace”. The point of this plugin is to update references in your DB pointing to the old domain to now point to the new domain.
You should use a search term like “://myolddomain.com” to be replaced with “://mynewdomain.com”. Make sure the exchange is equivalent – paying particular attention to spelling, spacing, and the beginning and ending characters.
Another course of action could be to use a site backup or duplicator plugin (like updraftplus) to take a backup of the current site and then restore it to the new domain. Make sure you take two backups, one full backup, and another that skips the current wp-config file. Since the db restoral process won’t update the wp-config file. This suggestion, of course, assumes that there aren’t any other custom changes made to the wp-config file. If there are, then you’ll still need access to the file structure of the site.
Change it in mariadb or mysql
The reason you cannot change the you are all of the website is because internally every link to to your website in WordPress begins with that URL and if you change it every Link in WordPress will break.
What you’re talking about doing is called migrating to a new domain, and you will need professional help to make sure you don’t break the website.
If those are grayed out, it’s because you cannot change them, because they are set in the wp-config file. Gain access to the actual website files, and edit the config file to fix the problem.
If you don’t immediately know how to do this, then it may be beyond your skills, in which case you should hire somebody who actually knows what they’re doing like a web developer or somebody familiar with file systems and FTP or whatever. Somebody who actually works with computers. You are in marketing, not in IT.