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WordPress Troubleshooting

How to Fix the 404 Page Not Found Error in WordPress

A comprehensive guide to troubleshooting and fixing the 404 Page Not Found error in WordPress by resetting Permalinks, fixing .htaccess, and managing server redirects.

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How to Fix the 404 Page Not Found Error in WordPress

The 404 Page Not Found error is one of the most recognizable errors on the internet. In technical terms, it is an HTTP standard response code indicating that the browser was able to communicate with a given server, but the server could not find what was requested.

In the context of WordPress, this error frequently exhibits a very specific and confusing behavior: Your homepage loads perfectly fine, but clicking on any blog post, page, or category results in a 404 error.

While it might seem like all your content has been completely deleted, don’t panic! Your posts and pages are still safely stored in your MySQL database. The issue is simply that the routing map WordPress uses to find them has been corrupted or disconnected.

Here is a step-by-step guide to fixing the 404 error in WordPress.

What Causes the 404 Error in WordPress?

Unlike 500-level errors (which indicate a server crash), a 404 error is usually caused by a configuration mismatch. The most common triggers include:

  1. Corrupted Permalinks: This is the cause of 99% of WordPress 404 errors. If a new plugin is installed (especially Custom Post Type plugins) or if you migrate your site to a new server, the rewrite rules get scrambled.
  2. Changed URLs: If you manually change the “slug” (URL) of a published post, anyone clicking an old link to that post will get a 404.
  3. Missing .htaccess File: Your Apache server relies on the .htaccess file to process beautiful URLs (like yoursite.com/my-post instead of yoursite.com/?p=123). If this file is missing or lacks the proper rewrite rules, Apache won’t know how to route the traffic.

Step 1: The “Magic Fix” – Reset Your Permalinks

If your inner pages are returning a 404 but your homepage works, resetting your Permalinks will almost certainly fix the issue instantly. This process forces WordPress to flush its rewrite rules and generate a fresh .htaccess file.

How to reset Permalinks:

  1. Log into your wp-admin dashboard.
  2. In the left-hand sidebar, navigate to Settings > Permalinks.
  3. You do not need to change any radio buttons or settings.
  4. Simply scroll to the absolute bottom of the page and click the blue Save Changes button.

That’s it! Go back to the frontend of your website and click on a post. It should now load correctly.

Step 2: Manually Fix the .htaccess File

Sometimes, due to strict file permissions on your server, clicking “Save Changes” in the Permalinks setting fails because WordPress is physically blocked from writing to the .htaccess file. In this scenario, you must update the file manually.

How to update .htaccess manually:

  1. Connect to your website via FTP or your hosting control panel’s File Manager.
  2. Navigate to your root directory (the same folder as wp-config.php).
  3. Find the .htaccess file. (Ensure “Show Hidden Files” is enabled).
  4. Right-click and choose Edit.
  5. Delete whatever is currently in the file, and replace it with the default WordPress routing rules:
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

Save the file and test your website.

Step 3: Handle Changed URLs with 301 Redirects

If only one specific post is throwing a 404 error, while the rest of your site works perfectly, it means the URL for that specific post has changed. Perhaps you edited the slug, or perhaps you deleted an outdated article.

Leaving a 404 error active is terrible for your SEO. When Google bots hit a 404, they drop the page from their index, and you lose any backlink power that URL had acquired.

How to fix individual 404s: You must implement a 301 Permanent Redirect. This tells the browser (and search engines) that the page has permanently moved to a new location, and automatically forwards the user there.

The easiest way to do this is by installing a free plugin like Redirection.

  1. Install and activate the Redirection plugin from the WordPress repository.
  2. Go to Tools > Redirection.
  3. In the “Source URL” field, paste the old URL that is throwing the 404 error.
  4. In the “Target URL” field, paste the new URL where you want the user to go.
  5. Click Add Redirect.

[!TIP] If you are redesigning a large site and changing dozens of URLs, managing redirects can be resource-intensive. Ensure your site is hosted on a high-performance platform like Nextgen Cloud Hosting to ensure rapid redirect execution without slowing down your Time to First Byte (TTFB).

Maintain clean Apache mod_rewrite rules automatically on Nextgen’s managed shared hosting.