Replace Your Kids’ Names (and more!) with a Nifty WordPress Plugin
September 30th, 2008 by HeatherJ
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Months, or even years ago, when you decided to start your blog and tell the whole free world about how little Jane and John were progressing in their lives, you didn’t think twice about using their real names. Why would you? No one’s going to actually READ your blog, right? It’s there for the sole purpose of sharing your children and their escapades as they grow up with friends and family across the miles.
But then something amazing happens. You realize that there are other moms out there who are also blogging. They are also sharing their lives with you on the internet, and you’re loving it because now you have someone to connect with, even if it’s only “through the box”.
People are commenting on your blog and you’re commenting on others and relationships are formed.
And then one day you realize that you’re sharing WAY too much about your home life and it makes you a bit uncomfortable.
You immediately think of new names for your children such as Thing 1 and Thing 2 or TweedleDee and TweedleDum, and from that day forward, you never mention your children’s real names again.
That’s all fine and dandy, but what about all the old posts that call them by name? You think to yourself that as you have free time (ha ha) you’ll go back and change them - after all, they’re old posts. Surely no one will scan the archives.
If this describes you, have you been back through your archives yet to manually change all the instances where you’ve revealed who you are and where you live?
Don’t feel guilty. We don’t have time to do things like that and it’s understandable. We’re moms. We’re busy. We’re blogging. Getting today’s post up about how you are up for the Mother of the Year award, again, for forgetting to send lunch money to school, again, is way more important than all that work that your blog is demanding.
I can offer you a solution, but only if you’re a self-hosted WordPress user. (Another great reason to be self-hosted.)
Enter Search Regex, a WordPress plugin that will scour all of your old posts and find every single time that you’ve uttered your child’s real identity and replace it with their newfound one.
Seriously.
Simply install the plugin, activate it, and then head to your manage tab where you’ll find the Search Regex options. Then you can find and replace anything you want!
This also works great if you move from another blogging platform to WordPress. Set your permalink structure in WordPress to match that of the old platform and then replace the domain name using the plugin.
Now, the world will be none the wiser that you ever referred to your children by their real names - unless, of course, they read your blog back then.
When the memory eraser plugin comes out, I’ll be sure to let you know!
How do you feel about using your children’s real names on your blog? Are you for or against it and why? Head over to the Blissfully Domestic social network and share with us!
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Heather Jacobson is a self-taught web geek, mother, and blogger, and embraces the very meaning each title. You can find her online blogging about her quest for sanity (including her children’s real names) at Desperately Seeking Sanity and all things WordPress at Desperately Seeking WordPress.
Photo Credit: Vevera
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September 30th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
What a neat plugin! I recently switched domains, so this would be perfect for finding old permalinks.
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:39 am
do you know of a similar contraption which works with blogger?