Website needs amending but how?

We have a small business which uses a payment provider so we get paid for mail orders. The payment provider has changed all their URL's (I have a list) due to being bought over by bigger company. The person who set up the website has had to 'let go' his programmer and has not got the confidence to edit the code himself.
We have a deadline to change the URL' s or the website will stop working.
Can I have a go myself? What info do I need to access website? Surely it must be just string replacement. Can anyone guide me?

 

Yes it seems like it would be an easy string replacement. You need to edit the page, then you'll need access to the webserver to put the edited files back up. If it is remotely hosted you'll need an FTP program with your user name & password to upload the files.

 

Hi, I now have the ftp address, user name and password. I also have a full list of URL's to change over to.
I have Filezilla but don't seem to have it set up properly to get access to the server on which our website sits although it works fine for another site I maintain. Perhaps it is to do with the firewall - zone alarm- and virus software - avast- on my machine but I am not sure what to change. Should I disable these?
How do I see all the code to search for the URL's to change?
Anne

 

If you don't have the source files, you will need to download them from the site using ftp. Once you have them, it would be good to make a copy to work with, so you can go back to the originals if something happens.

I never had luck with disabling firewalls to get ftp working, and since it's working on the other site, it's more likely a port setting or some such thing. If the port is different from the other ftp one you use, you would need to tell the firewall to allow it, and set up Filezilla to use that port. There are other settings like passive or active modes that can cause problems. I've heard active mode can cause problems with Windows Firewall, but Zone Alarm isn't supposed to have that bug. I think Filezilla has a log setting, where it would show what the problem was, or at least give clues.

I use Notepad to change urls, myself, since it is simple, with a convenient search and replace feature. I just drag the html file to the window, put the old and new url, click replace all, and when I've done all the changes, save it and drag the next one in.

Before I re-upload, I try opening the html files in my browser, first, to make sure I didn't mess anything up. It might look weird, anyway, if they are other than html files.

 

Managed to download source files. There are rather a lot. I have tried to find the files which contain the string for replacing using 'search' but it does not seem to bring up some types of files. I would use Notepad but I need a multiple files search ability. Any suggestions?

 

You might give Agent Ransack a try: very good search functions, been using it for years without a hitch.

 

Thanks. That search program worked a treat and I managed to change the page with the old URL's.
Thank you so much!

 

Glad we could help - thanks for the feedback! :major