Title: Pattern Search and Replace
Last modified: August 21, 2016

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# Pattern Search and Replace

 *  [wattyrev](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wattyrev/)
 * (@wattyrev)
 * [12 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/pattern-search-and-replace/)
 * My site is using WordPress as a backbone for our static content. All of our articles
   and static pages retrieve their content from our WordPress installation. We have
   a problem running rampant through our content. A huge amount of pages have issues
   with `<strong>` tags appearing with in `<h2>`,`<h3>`, and `<h4>` tags. I need
   to remove these strong tags, and I am looking for a way to do this effectively.
   Here’s a breakdown of what I want to do:
 * Find html formatted like `<h2><strong>...</strong></h2>`
    Replace with `<h2>...
   </h2>`
 * I can’t do this with a simple search and replace because there may be situations
   that would cause issues. Some examples below:
 * `<h2><strong>...</strong>...</h2>`
    `<h2><strong>...</strong><strong>...</strong
   ></h2>`
 * An ideal way to go about doing this would be to have a plugin that will search
   for html patterns. An alternative way of doing this could be to use a standard
   search and replace that allows me to manually review and replace each search 
   result.
 * Any suggestions?

The topic ‘Pattern Search and Replace’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [html](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/html/)

 * 0 replies
 * 1 participant
 * Last reply from: [wattyrev](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wattyrev/)
 * Last activity: [12 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/pattern-search-and-replace/)
 * Status: not resolved

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