permalinks - how do links move when I move my site?

Very new at this, so maybe I am missing some fundamental understanding of how WordPress handles links. But, I'm building a website on my local machine, expecting to upload it to a provider when I'm done. Right now everything resolves to localhost.

Here's the problem. One of the pages has a list of links to other pages on the site. WordPress created those links as http://localhost/...

Shouldn't there be a placeholder for the domain name there instead of a hardcoded localhost? Or better yet, shouldn't they be relative links instead of fully qualified URLs?

Or will WordPress automatically fix those links when I move my site to a provider?

Very new at this, so maybe I am missing some fundamental understanding of how WordPress handles links. But, I'm building a website on my local machine, expecting to upload it to a provider when I'm done. Right now everything resolves to localhost.

Here's the problem. One of the pages has a list of links to other pages on the site. WordPress created those links as http://localhost/...

Shouldn't there be a placeholder for the domain name there instead of a hardcoded localhost? Or better yet, shouldn't they be relative links instead of fully qualified URLs?

Or will WordPress automatically fix those links when I move my site to a provider?

• permalinks

Share Improve this question asked Mar 20, 2019 at 13:44 DThompson55DThompson55 322 bronze badges

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2 Answers 2

Sorted by: Reset to default 2

Some links (those built in code) will automatically change to your new domain. Others (those in post content) you will want to swap out using something like better search replace to swap out localhost for your new domain.

Those URLs are stored in your WordPress database. Once you have moved your site to your provider, you will need to update the values in your database.

This article should point you in the right direction.

https://codex.wordpress/Moving_WordPress