VBScript code to replace text NOT in HTML tags

I had been looking for a solution to this problem for a little while and there was a post on ASPMessageboard that got me started. It pointed me to an article on 4GuysFromRolla that included a function as well as some search criteria.

First the function:

Function RegExpReplace(strInput, strPattern, strReplace) 
  ' Use <?> to indicate the match you wish to replace 
  ' Create and setup several variables: 
  Dim regEx, Match, Matches, Position, strReturn 
  Position = 1 
  strReturn = "" 

  ' Set up the regular expression: 
  Set regEx = New RegExp 
  regEx.Pattern = strPattern 
  regEx.IgnoreCase = True 
  regEx.Global = True 

  ' Get all the matches for it: 
  Set Matches = regEx.Execute(strInput) 

  ' Go through the Matches collection 
  ' and build the output string: 
  For Each Match in Matches 
    strReturn=strReturn & Mid(strInput, Position, Match.FirstIndex+1-Position)
    strReturn=strReturn & Replace(strReplace, "<?>", Match.Value) 
    Position = Len(Match.Value) + Match.FirstIndex + 1 
  Next 

  ' Add any text after the last match 
  strReturn = strReturn & Mid(strInput, Position, Len(strInput))
  RegExpReplace = strReturn 
End Function 

But the example search criteria in the post didn't quite work for me...

strHTML = RegExpReplace(strHTML, "strong(?![^<]+>), "*<?>*")

...it kept replacing text in html tags as well as text not in html tags. So, I banged around with it and came up with this modification:

strHTML = RegExpReplace(strHTML, "(?![^<]+>)" + strSearch + "(?![^<]+>)", strReplace)

strSearch is the text that I'm looking for and strReplace is what I want to replace it with.

I've done a few quick tests and it seems to be working well.