A Beginner’s Guide to WordPress Database

Because WordPress is marketed as a beginner-friendly platform, it’s a popular choice among first-time website owners. Without any technological experience, you can accomplish a lot with WordPress.

At the same time, understanding how some of the platform’s most basic aspects work is beneficial if you want to get the most out of it. It’s a good idea, for example, to study how WordPress databases function after you’ve been using it for a while.

The database of your website is crucial since it stores all of the information needed for it to function. It will assist you in better comprehending the platform you’re using, executing particular jobs more efficiently, and troubleshooting if you have a basic understanding of it.

In this article, we’ll discuss what a WordPress database is and how it operates. We’ll also look at how to locate and manage yours. Let’s get started!

An Introduction to Databases
Why Does WordPress Need a Database?
The Way Your WordPress Database Stores Data
How to Get Access to Your WordPress Database and Use It
An Overview of Databases
The term “database” isn’t limited to WordPress. A database, to put it simply, is a collection of data that has been arranged. This information is kept in an electronic format, usually on a computer system, and may be retrieved at any time. Databases come in all shapes and sizes, as well as varying degrees of sophistication.

They all have one thing in common: they all store a set of data in a way that makes it easy to access. Rows, columns, and tables are commonly used to arrange the data contained therein – such as records or files. Furthermore, databases are dynamic. As long as you have access to a database, you can add, delete, and edit its contents.

Because the data in databases might be sensitive, they usually have some form of security measures in place to keep unwanted people out.

Why WordPress Requires a Database
It’s possible you don’t realize it, but your WordPress site is a lot more complicated than it appears. Even if your site is modest, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes to keep it running well. A WordPress website, in particular, is made up of many distinct types of data.

All of this data is saved in a centralized WordPress database, as you might expect. This database is what allows your website to function and for changes made by you or your visitors to be stored. The following are some of the items kept in your WordPress database:

Material such as posts, pages, and other types of content.
Information about the organization, such as categories and tags.
Data and feedback from users.
Site-wide configurations.
Data relating to plugins and themes.
In other words, your database contains almost everything that makes up your website. It’s worth understanding a little about how the database works only for this reason.

How Your WordPress Database Works
Part of the process of installing a new WordPress website entails creating a database for it. In most cases, this will happen automatically. You can, however, manually construct a database or use an existing database in conjunction with a new website.

Your database will almost always be kept on the server of your hosting provider. This is referred to as a “database host” on occasion. A person’s browser sends a request to your site’s server when they visit it. The server then delivers the data required to display the site and make it function properly. It’s also worth mentioning that a database requires its own set of software to run.

WordPress makes use of the MySQL database management system, which is free and open-source software. As a result, your site’s database may be referred to as a “MySQL database” at times. MySQL is the software that allows the database to store data and provide you access to it. WordPress sends a MySQL ‘query’ to the database when data needs to be stored, changed, or deleted. This simply implies that instructions are given out regarding which data should be affected and how it should be handled.

Here’s an example of a somewhat simple MySQL query:

WHERE wp comments.comment approved =’spam’; DELETE FROM wp comments

This line instructs the database to examine all of the data it has on user comments. It will discover and delete all of the spam comments you’ve flagged. Many database queries are executed automatically.

You can also utilize a database manager to streamline the procedure, or you can access your database directly and run these types of instructions by hand. This allows you to complete activities faster than you could if you used the dashboard, and it also allows you to do things you couldn’t before (like changing your account’s username).

We’ll go over how to locate and access your WordPress database in a moment. But first, let’s take a closer look at the different types of tables in the database.

How Your WordPress Database Organizes Information
We noted briefly before that information in a database is arranged. The massive volume of data is structured into a series of “database tables” so that it can be accessed quickly and conveniently. In a nutshell, a database table is similar to a filing cabinet folder in that it houses a specific type of data. While you could have one folder for bills and another for receipts in your home filing system, your WordPress database has tables for comments, posts, and so on. The following tables will be included in a completely new WordPress database:

wp commentmeta \swp comments \swp links \swp options \swp postmeta \swp posts \swp terms \swp termmeta \swp term relationships \swp term taxonomy \swp usermeta \swp users
The names of these tables, as you can see, give you a decent indication of what each one is in charge of. Furthermore, each table comprises a number of columns and fields that carry even more particular types of data. The WP comments table, for example, stores information on comments placed on your pages and posts. It’s further divided into the following columns:

comment ID \scomment post ID \scomment author \scomment author email \scomment author url \scomment author IP \scomment date \scomment date gmt \scomment content \scomment karma \scomment approved \scomment agent \scomment type \scomment parent \suser id
This essentially means that the database stores a great deal of data about each individual comment. This information contains the comment’s unique ID, the post where it appears, information about the author, and more. If you wanted to delete spam comments like we did in the previous example, you’d need to use a MySQL query to get to this database table.

How to Access and Use Your WordPress Database (In 2 Steps)
In the vast majority of circumstances, your database is self-contained. You don’t need to use it to produce content or manage your website. At the same time, there are numerous scenarios in which knowing how to locate and comprehend your database is beneficial. You can need to access your WordPress database for a variety of reasons, including:

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To have a better understanding of how your site is structured.
To complete actions that aren’t possible to complete through the WordPress interface.
As part of the process of diagnosing certain frequent WordPress problems.
There’s also a typical problem with your database that you may solve with our guide: How to Fix the “MySQL Server Has Gone Away” Error in WordPress, as well as the other prevalent issue – “No Update Required Your WordPress Database is Already Up-to-Date” – which is actually caused by caching.

Let’s have a look at how to maintain your WordPress database with this in mind.

Step 1: Open phpMyAdmin and log in.
Because your database is stored on the server that hosts your site, you’ll have to go through your hosting provider to have access to it. As a result, depending on the web host you’re utilizing, the method necessary may differ slightly. In most circumstances, though, you’ll need to use the phpMyAdmin interface.

First and foremost, ensure sure you have a recent backup of your website before working with your database. It’s all too easy to make database modifications that are difficult to undo and potentially site-breaking. If you have a backup of your site, you can simply restore it to its original condition if you make a mistake.

The next step is to find phpMyAdmin on your hosting account. Typically, this entails first logging into cPanel and then searching for phpMyAdmin. If your web server employs a proprietary management system, the process may be slightly different. For example, at Kinsta, we offer a unique hosting panel called the MyKinsta dashboard to our consumers.

If your site is hosted with us, go to your dashboard, choose the site you want to administer, then scroll down to the Database access area. There’ll be a link that says Open phpMyAdmin:

Dashboard for MyKinsta
Dashboard for MyKinsta
You’ll be taken to a login screen, where you may enter the database username and password from the Database access area of your dashboard. The phpMyAdmin manager will open as a result of this.

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Step 2: Go to your database and start editing it.
phpMyAdmin has the same appearance regardless of how you access it:

Manager for phpMyAdmin
Manager for phpMyAdmin
A complete list can be found under the Databases tab at the top of the screen. There should be a few of phpMyAdmin-related ones, as well as one named after your website. When you select the latter, you’ll be taken to the following database:

MySQL is a database management system.
MySQL is a database management system.
As you can see, this contains the database table list we described earlier. Each one has a link to the columns and fields it contains:

wp options is a MySQL database.
wp options is a MySQL database.
You can search for, add, amend, and delete data using the many choices available from here. Let’s have a look at how to alter the username on your WordPress account as an example. This isn’t something you can do with the dashboard, but it’s simple to do with your database.

To do so, go to the wp users table and click the Edit button next to the username you wish to change:

You can change your username in the database.
Through the database, you can change your username.
Then, under user login, put your new username to the Value field:

Your username has been updated immediately in the WordPress database.
Your username has been updated immediately in the WordPress database.
Select Go to complete your changes. This will automatically update your account’s username. Many database-related activities are as simple as this: all you have to do is discover and edit the appropriate data. However, remember to exercise extreme caution when doing so. It’s best to know what work you’re trying to complete ahead of time and look for a guide or tutorial that will show you where to get the information you require (and what to do with it). A plugin can also be used to manage your database. The majority of these are free and may be found in the WordPress repository. We’ve compiled a list of the top WordPress database plugins for you.

Info
To provide improved database performance, all Kinsta plans include weekly automatic MySQL database optimization. For more information, see our plans.

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Summary
Interacting with your WordPress database can be frightening if you’re not a web developer. It is, however, a skill worth mastering because it allows you to make a variety of changes to your website. Furthermore, most hosts make accessing and managing your database a breeze.

The content, user data, settings, and other data in your WordPress database are all necessary for it to function. This data is arranged into tables, columns, and fields, which you may change whenever you want. You may access your database by going to phpMyAdmin in your hosting control panel – but be sure to back up your site first and be cautious while making changes.

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