WordPress permalink not working? there are a couple of reasons why that happened.
In this article, I’ll give you three reasons why your website content returns ‘page not found’ errors after you’ve changed permalink and also how to fix them.
How do you Change Permalinks on WordPress
To change your link structure in WordPress is very easy, follow the steps below
- Hover on the Settings menu in the left sidebar
- Click on ‘Permalinks’
- Select the permalink structure you wish to use on your website and click on save.
Once this is done, your website may return a ‘page not found’ error or it may not.
Why your site shows ‘Page not found’ error after permalink change
There are basically three reasons why your website shows a ‘page not found’ error after you’ve changed the link structure.
- Plugins
- CDN
- .htaccess rewrite issue
How to Fix WordPress Permalink not working
I’ll now show you how to fix the permalinks not working issue according to each reason why it’s not working.
Plugins
The very first step you should take is to deactivate all plugins currently active on your website, to do this:
- Hover on the Plugins menu on the left sidebar
- Click on Installed plugins
- Tick the very first box and all your installed plugins will be selected
- Then deactivate all the plugins.
Go back to your site and refresh it, your links should now be working, but if it isn’t.
CDN
For some website owners like me who use CDNs like Cloudflare to optimize and secure our websites, this error may not be fixed ASAP due to caching.
You should login to your CDN platform, head over to the caching section and purge all cache.
On Cloudflare, you can choose to temporarily pause Cloudflare on your site, this will show any updates done to your website in realtime not cached versions.
This should fix your issue right away, but if it didn’t, check the last step.
.htaccess fix
If the two steps above didn’t work for you, it means that your .htaccess file was not configured correctly.
You now either fix it yourself or contact your Hosting provider.
If you wish to fix it yourself, then:
- Login in to the Cpanel of your Hosting provider
- Open your file manager and locate the .htaccess file
- Double click on the .htaccess file to open it and make sure the following code is present in it.
# BEGIN WordPress
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
# END WordPressIf the code is present, make sure that it is in the same format. But if the code isn’t there, copy it and paste it in your .htaccess file and then save.
The error is expected to be fixed in less than 30 Seconds.
Conclusion on WordPress permalink not working
The steps that I’ve given you in this article will help you fix WordPress permalink not working on your website.
Leave a comment on your experience below!
