If you declare your arrays, and set k to 0 first, put quotes around array values and use the correct limit (you can default to -1), you will get results, here is code and example (hopefully this helps you) <?php function internal_links($str, $links, $limit=-1) { $pattern=array(); $replace=array(); $k=0; foreach($links AS $link){ $pattern[$k] = "~\b({$link['phrase']})\b~i"; $replace[$k] = '<a href="'.$link['link'].'">\\1</a>'; $k++; } return preg_replace($pattern,$replace,$str, $limit); } echo internal_links("süße knuffige Beagle Welpen ab sofort", array(array('phrase'=>"beagle", 'link'=>"http://google.com"),array('phrase'=>"welpen", 'link'=>"http://wolframalpha.com")), -1); Output: süße knuffige <a href="http://google.com">Beagle</a> <a href=" http://wolframalpha.com">Welpen</a> ab ~Alex