Knowledge Base

Changing WordPress 404 Not Found URL

Currently when a WordPress does not found any of the pages it goes to not found page but show same URL in browser which does not good for SEO purpose

For instance, if you type www.yoursite.com/aaaaa

It goes to ‘not found page’ but show same URL

SEO guys need it should show www.yoursite.com/404.php instead of www.yoursite.com/aaaaa

For this there are simple tweaks

Open wp-includes/template.php and search for get_404_template()

The existing function is as given below:

function get_404_template() {

return get_query_template(‘404’);

}

Replace this function with below given code

function get_404_template() {

if($_SERVER[‘REQUEST_URI’]!=’/404.php’){

$url=”http://www.”.$_SERVER[‘HTTP_HOST’].”/404.php”;

header(“Location: $url”);

}

return get_query_template(‘404’);

}

Name: Rajiv Kumar

Designation: Technical Team Lead

&

Name: Praveen Chauhan

Designation: Sr. Software Engineer