WordPress Category and Postname Permalink 404 Fix
Are you having a problem with usingĀ /%category%/%postname%/ as your permalink structure when attempting to remove the /category/ base? As of the time of this guide writeup, it is still a problem in WordPress 4.2.1 that has dated back to WordPress over 8 years ago according to our research.
If you take advantage of a little hack in your permalinks by adding a . under category base, you may notice that your page 2 and beyond will show up as a 404 error. That’s not going to work, so you have a few options.
- Change your permalinks to not use /%category%/.
- Live with URLs like:
https://www.t5a.com/category/wordpress/wordpress-category-postname-permalinks/ - Read on and use our fix to correct the issue.
How to Fix Page 2 404s Without /category/ in URLs
There’s an older free plugin available to correct this called WP No Category Base.
Simply install that plugin then go to Settings > Permalinks and remove the “.” from the Optional “Category base” area and you are golden. There’s no additional configuration page or settings that you’ll have to mess with.
![WP No Category Base Review](https://www.t5a.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/wpnocategorybase-flawless.png)
What’s really nice about this plugin is the fact that it will also redirect 301 the old /category/ links to the URL structure you want to use.
Plugin Compatibility
- Works with multiple sub-categories
- Works with WordPress Network setup (WordPress Multisite)
- Works with sitemap plugins.
- Does not work with certain foreign languages according to their support forum (encoding issue).
Does this fix your problem? Leave a comment below and let us know.