How do I recode a URL string variable? For example one of the variables is a url. If I find the word download anywhere in the url I want to recode that into download center. How do I do this?

You can use the FIND() function in excel to see if the string "download" appears in the URL string. The following would return "Download Center" if cell A1 contains the string "download" anywher in it, or simply copy over the URL string if "download" is not present:

=IF(ISNUMBER(FIND("download",A1)),"Download Center",A1)