This single step fixes the overwhelming majority of WordPress 404 errors on posts and pages. It forces WordPress to regenerate all rewrite rules and rewrite the .htaccess file.

1. Log in to your WordPress admin dashboard
2. Go to Settings → Permalinks
3. Without changing your permalink structure, click Save Changes
4. Go back to your site and check if the 404 errors are resolved

That's it. WordPress will flush the rewrite rules and write a fresh set to your .htaccess file.

If your 404 error appeared after any of the following, this fix almost always resolves it:

• A WordPress core update
• Installing or deactivating a plugin
• Creating a new custom post type
• Changing your permalink structure

If the 404 errors persist after saving permalinks, continue to the fixes below.

If regenerating permalinks didn't work, the .htaccess file itself may be corrupted, have incorrect permissions, or be missing entirely.

Step 1: Locate the .htaccess file
Connect to your server via FTP or your hosting file manager and navigate to your WordPress root directory (the same folder that contains wp-config.php).

The .htaccess file is hidden by default. In FileZilla: go to Server → Force showing hidden files. In cPanel File Manager: click Settings and enable "Show Hidden Files."

Step 2: Check its contents
Open the .htaccess file. A standard WordPress .htaccess file should contain the following block:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

If the file is empty, missing these rules, or contains something different, that's your problem.

Step 3: Fix the .htaccess file

• If the file exists but has wrong content: replace its contents with the standard block above
• If the file is missing entirely: create a new file named .htaccess in your WordPress root and paste in the standard block
• If the file exists and looks correct: the issue is elsewhere — continue to the next fix

After editing, go to Settings → Permalinks and click Save Changes again to let WordPress write its rules fresh.

Even if the .htaccess file has the correct content, wrong file permissions can prevent the server from reading it — causing 404 errors.

Correct .htaccess permission: 644

To fix it via FTP:

1. Right-click the .htaccess file in your FTP client
2. Select File Permissions (or Change Permissions)
3. Enter 644 and click OK

To fix it via SSH:

chmod 644 /path/to/your/wordpress/.htaccess

Also check that the WordPress root folder itself has the correct permission:

chmod 755 /path/to/your/wordpress/

WordPress permalink URLs rely on Apache's mod_rewrite module to redirect requests through index.php. If this module is disabled on your server, no amount of .htaccess editing will fix the 404 errors.

Check if mod_rewrite is enabled:
If you have SSH access, run:

apache2ctl -M | grep rewrite

If you see rewrite_module in the output, it's enabled. If you don't see it, it needs to be activated.

Enable mod_rewrite:

On Ubuntu/Debian servers:

sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo systemctl restart apache2

On cPanel hosting, this is usually enabled by default — if it's not, contact your hosting provider and ask them to enable mod_rewrite.

Check your Apache VirtualHost configuration:
Even if mod_rewrite is enabled, it won't work unless your VirtualHost configuration allows .htaccess overrides. The AllowOverride directive must be set to All:

<Directory /var/www/html/your-wordpress-site/>
    AllowOverride All
</Directory>

If this is set to None or FileInfo, .htaccess rules are ignored and your permalinks will break. Ask your hosting provider to check and update this setting if needed.

If your WordPress Address (URL) or Site Address (URL) settings don't match your actual domain, WordPress will generate incorrect links and your posts may return 404 errors.

Via WordPress admin:

1. Go to Settings → General
2. Check both the WordPress Address (URL) and Site Address (URL) fields
3. Make sure both match your actual domain exactly — including https:// vs http:// and www vs non-www
4. Click Save Changes

Common mismatches to look for:

• http:// instead of https://
• www.yourdomain.com vs yourdomain.com
• A leftover staging or development URL (e.g., http://localhost or http://staging.yourdomain.com)

If you can't access wp-admin:

Edit wp-config.php directly via FTP and add these two lines just before the /* That's all, stop editing! */ comment:

define('WP_HOME', 'https://yourdomain.com');
define('WP_SITEURL', 'https://yourdomain.com');

Replace https://yourdomain.com with your actual domain. Save the file and reload your site.

If your 404 errors appeared after moving WordPress to a new domain, subdomain, or subfolder, the URLs stored in your WordPress database may still point to the old location.

Update URLs in the database:
The safest way to do this is with the Better Search Replace plugin:

1. Install and activate Better Search Replace from the WordPress plugin repository
2. Go to Tools → Better Search Replace
3. In the "Search for" field, enter your old URL (e.g., http://olddomain.com)
4. In the "Replace with" field, enter your new URL (e.g., https://newdomain.com)
5. Select all database tables
6. Run a dry run first to preview changes
7. Uncheck "Run as dry run?" and click Run Search/Replace to apply

After updating the database, go to Settings → Permalinks and click Save Changes again.

If you moved WordPress to a subfolder or subdirectory:

For example, if your site now lives at yourdomain.com/blog/ instead of yourdomain.com/, you'll need to update both the database URLs and the .htaccess file's RewriteBase setting:

RewriteBase /blog/

Some plugins — particularly SEO plugins, redirect managers, and membership plugins — register their own rewrite rules. A conflict between these rules and WordPress's default routing can cause 404 errors on posts and pages.

To test if a plugin is the cause:

1. Go to Plugins → Installed Plugins in wp-admin
2. Select all plugins and choose Deactivate from Bulk Actions
3. Visit the posts and pages that were returning 404 errors

If they load correctly now, reactivate plugins one by one, checking after each, until the 404 errors return. The last plugin you activated is the conflict.

Common plugins that can cause 404 issues include:

• Yoast SEO (if permalink settings conflict)
• All in One SEO Pack
• WP Super Cache / W3 Total Cache (with wrong cache settings)
• Custom permalink or redirect plugins
• Membership and access-restriction plugins

If you're seeing 404 errors only on a specific custom post type (like portfolio, products, team members, etc.) but regular posts and pages work fine, the issue is almost always unflushed rewrite rules.

Quick fix: flush rewrite rules

Go to Settings → Permalinks and click Save Changes — this flushes all rewrite rules including custom post types.

If that doesn't work, the plugin or theme registering the custom post type may have a bug in how it sets up the rewrite slug. Check that the register_post_type() call includes:

'rewrite' => array('slug' => 'your-slug'),

And make sure the plugin is up to date.

On a WordPress Multisite network, 404 errors are common and usually relate to server configuration rather than WordPress settings.

For subdirectory multisite (e.g., yourdomain.com/site2/):

Your .htaccess file needs specific multisite rewrite rules. Replace the standard WordPress .htaccess block with this:

# BEGIN WordPress Multisite
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]

# Add a trailing slash to /wp-admin
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?wp-admin$ $1wp-admin/ [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^ - [L]
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(wp-(content|admin|includes).*) $2 [L]
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(.*\.php)$ $2 [L]
RewriteRule . index.php [L]
# END WordPress Multisite

For subdomain multisite (e.g., site2.yourdomain.com):

Your server needs wildcard subdomain support. Contact your hosting provider to enable wildcard DNS and wildcard SSL if not already configured.

Occasionally, custom code added to wp-config.php or a theme's functions.php file can interfere with WordPress's routing.

1. Connect via FTP and open functions.php from your active theme
2. Look for any calls to add_rewrite_rule(), add_permastruct(), or flush_rewrite_rules()
3. If you find any custom rewrite rules, comment them out temporarily and test

Also check wp-config.php for any non-standard URL or routing configurations.