Are you wondering how to change the WordPress database prefix for your website?
Changing your database prefix can protect your website data from SQL injections and other online hacking attacks. This is an important step to improve your WordPress security.
In this tutorial, we will show you how to change the WordPress database prefix for increased security.
Why should you change your WordPress database prefix?
WordPress database is like the brain of your entire WordPress website as every piece of information and file is stored there.
This makes databases a favorite target for hackers. Spammers and hackers can run automated code called SQL injections to break into your WordPress database.
Unfortunately, many people forget to change the database prefix when installing WordPress. This makes it easier for hackers to plan large-scale attacks targeting the default prefix wp_ .
The easiest way to protect your WordPress database is to change your database prefix, which is pretty simple on a site you’re setting up.
It takes a few extra steps to properly change the WordPress database prefix of your established website without causing complete chaos. Therefore, we will show you how to change the WordPress database prefix and improve the security of WordPress.
How to Change the WordPress Database Prefix
We recommend that you back up your WordPress database before doing anything in this tutorial. It is also important to back up your WordPress site daily using a plugin like Duplicator .
We also recommend that you redirect your visitors to a temporary maintenance page while you change your database prefix. Failure to do so may result in a poor experience for your site visitors.
How to change the table prefix in wp-config.php
First, you need to connect to your website using FTP or the file manager application in your WordPress hosting account.
Then you need to open the wp-config.php file located in your WordPress root directory. Here you can change the table prefix line from wp_ to something else, such as wp_a123456_
So the line looks like this:
$table_prefix = 'wp_a123456_';
Note: You can only change the table prefix to use numbers, letters, and underscores.
Change the names of all database tables
Next, you need to connect to your database using the phpMyAdmin tool. If your host uses a cPanel dashboard, then you can easily find phpMyAdmin there.
There are 11 default WordPress tables, so changing them manually can be cumbersome.
Instead, you should click on the “SQL” tab at the top.
You can then enter the following SQL query:
RENAME table wp_commentmeta TO wp_a123456_commentmeta;
RENAME table wp_comments TO wp_a123456_comments;
RENAME table wp_links TO wp_a123456_links;
RENAME table wp_options TO wp_a123456_options;
RENAME table wp_postmeta TO wp_a123456_postmeta;
RENAME table wp_posts TO wp_a123456_posts;
RENAME table wp_terms TO wp_a123456_terms;
RENAME table wp_termmeta TO wp_a123456_termmeta;
RENAME table wp_term_relationships TO wp_a123456_term_relationships;
RENAME table wp_term_taxonomy TO wp_a123456_term_taxonomy;
RENAME table wp_usermeta TO wp_a123456_usermeta;
RENAME table wp_users TO wp_a123456_users;
Remember to change the database prefix to the one you chose when editing the wp-config.php file.
You may also need to add some code for other plugins to add their own tables to the WordPress database. This is done by changing all the table prefixes to the prefix you want.
Options Table
We then need to optionssearch the table for any other fields that are prefixed with wp_ so that we can replace them.
To speed up the process, you can use the following query:
01.SELECT * FROM wp_a123456_options WHERE option_name LIKE '%wp_%'
This will return a lot of results and you will need to go through them one by one to change those lines and their prefixes.
User Meta Table
Next, we need to search for usermetaall fields that are prefixed with wp_ so that we can replace it.
You can use this SQL query to achieve this:
SELECT * FROM wp_a123456_usermeta WHERE meta_key LIKE '%wp_%'
The number of entries may vary depending on the number of WordPress plugins used on your site. Simply change everything with the wp_ prefix to your new prefix.
Now you can test your website. If you followed the steps above, everything should be working fine.
To be on the safe side, we recommend making a new backup of your database.
Hopefully this article helped you learn how to change your WordPress database prefix. You may also want to check out our guide on how to optimize your WordPress database .
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