In this guide, you will learn how to fix 404 error in WordPress websites.
If your site has one or two posts, then you can manually check them for any dead links, but if your site has hundreds or thousands of posts, then it will take you months to manually check them for dead links. So in that case, to make your life easier you can use wordpress plugins. Today in this post I will show you 3 such plugins which can sort out your Google 404 error.
Now sometimes I get support request from bloggers and webmasters reporting that they are getting “post not found error”. These types of errors usually happen when you or somebody intentionally or mistakenly delete the .htacess file or change the post permalink structure. Later in this post, I will also discuss on this problem and will provide you with a code snippet to sort it out.
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3 Best WordPress 404 Error Plugins
When you have hundreds of posts and comments then it’s almost impossible to check each of them manually for dead links. In such case, you can leave this complex and time-consuming task on plugins. There are many add-ons available for this purpose and my top 3 favorites have been listed here.
Broken Link Checker
One of the most extensive plugins builds to track, find and repair all types of links. It can check the HTML structure or just the “raw” written links without any hyperlinking. This plugin checks every post, page, comments for broken links.
It also has many advanced features like abilities to block search engines from crawling dead links, email notification support and ability to perform search query based on custom text or URL.
Once this plugin completes its task of searching for broken links it provides you with a list of all those broken links. Then you have options to either delete them or to repair them. You also have the possibility to schedule the scan process.
TentBlogger 404 Repair
This plugin is a bit different than its counterparts. Instead of scanning every content, it keeps track on your visitors and searches bots requests. If the request made by them fails or return an error, then it records it and notifies you. This makes your repair task much easier than ever.
This plugin is no more updated, but you can still use it. But I will highly recommend choosing the plugin which is updated on a regular basis.
404 Redirected
It’s one another advance plugin with has the capability to automatically create redirects for error links. Actually, it tries to find the URL where your visitor was trying to visit and then accordingly serve or create the new URL.
Actually, it keeps track of every link your visitors tries to visit, and when it finds any dead link, then it adds it to the log. Now the administration gets the option to either remove those broken links or create 301 permanent redirects or 302 temporary redirects.
How to fix 404 posts not found error in WordPress
In order to fix this problem, you will have to visit your WordPress dashboard. Then from here, you have to navigate to the settings page and then to permalink page. Or you can simply visit the URL posted below. Just replace your domain name.
yourdomain/wp-admin/options-permalink.php
Now once again select the same permalink structure like you had before and click save changes button. Also, make sure to flush your cache if you are using any CDN or cache plugin.
If still you are getting the “post not found error” then most probably your .htacess file is not getting updated properly. Actually, all these settings are controlled via this .htacess file and to make changes to the website link structure, it is necessary to update it.
Now in order to update it, you will have to visit control panel or Cpanel of your hosting.
After logging inside e the hosting account search for file manager and then navigate to the public_html folder.
Then search the directory for the .htacess file. Once found create a backup of this file and then right-click on it. From the on-click menu select code edit.
Now insert these codes into it.
# BEGIN WordPress RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule . /index.php [L] # END WordPress
Once done click on update button and flush the cache of CDN service, if you are using it.
You also have to temporarily make wp-include and wp-content folder writable. In order to do so, you have to right click on these folders and have to change its permission to 666. Once all the changes are made successfully simply revert permission back to 600.
All these are advanced settings so make sure to follow the steps properly. If you face any problem or if you are still getting errors then please let me known about it in the comment area.
Sakshi says
Actually i have deleted many tags 1month ago and now google send me message like – “Increase in “404” pages on kuchjano.in.
I have submitted removal request to google one by one and have submitted MARK AS FIXED but there is not effect on it. Yahoo also send me 404 errors regularly.
Please help me. How may i solve this..??
Vivek Kumar says
I don’t think that’s a “BIG” problem. What you have to just do is to nofollow, noindex tag pages ( if you are using any SEO plugin — check this post http://wpvkp.com/best-wordpress-seo-plugins/ ).
Also make sure that your sitemap doesn’t have any tag listings.
Inorder to automatically redirect “real visitors – humans” to other related pages, you can use Cloudflare service.
Hope this helps.
Kirston says
Hi Mr. Vivek I Recommend 404 To Homepage also free plugin
https://wordpress.org/plugins/404-to-homepage-littlebizzy/
if your team interested… good luck mate