WordPress is the world’s most preferred website building platform and for good reason. It is very easy to set up and highly customizable. Sometimes it can be tricky to change it when you move a website to different domains but thankfully there are more than one ways in which WordPress enabled us to change the site URL.

WordPress provides two configurable website URLs – WordPress address (also called SiteURL) and Site address (also called HomeURL). WordPress relies on these URLs to access your files and load the content correctly onto your website. Generally, the two addresses are filled out by default when you create a WordPress website. To change the URL of a WordPress website, you need to modify both the WordPress address and Site address URL.

There is a lot of confusion when it comes to understanding what WordPress address and Site address does, and why there are two addresses instead of one. In this article, we aim to demystify these URLs and give you an understanding of how to modify them.

So, what’s the difference between them?

The WordPress Address is where your admin pages are, along with all the other parts of WordPress, such as the folders “/wp-content/”, “/wp-include/” live. It is were the code or brains of your WordPress site reside.

The Site Address is the public-facing part of your site. It is the URL that visitors visit, and the URL you put on your business card.

Why are they sometimes different?

In a default WordPress installation, the two address are the same. But sometimes WordPress is in a different folder or directory than your public home page. Why? Here are a couple of the reasons why they may be different:

1) Your site has parts that are not WordPress based.
2) You want to keep your root directory free of WordPress folders and files.

If you currently have WordPress installed in your root folder, and want to move it to its own folder, the WordPress codex has instructions for that here: How to Give WordPress its own Directory.