Restricting access with “Options -Indexes” returns 404 instead of 403

  • Amanda

    (@rocketkiddo)


    2 years, 4 months ago

    I have a WordPress site and I want to block access to /wp-content and /wp-includes.

    I have added this in .htaccess in the root folder: Options -Indexes

    However, instead of returning 403:

    For /wp-content it returns 200 with a blank page.
    For all subdirectories in /wp-content (i.e. /wp-content/uploads) it returns 404
    For /wp-includes it returns 404
    What I’m expecting: I want to specifically block access to these directories and return a 403 Error and not a blank page or 404.

    What am I doing wrong?

    Also, I want to make sure that just the /wp-content directory is blocked (and all the subfolders) and not the images inside the folder /uploads.

    Will this negatively impact Google or any other search engine?

    Can anyone help, please?

    Added Options -Indexes in .htaccess and instead of returning 403 it returns a blank page or 404.

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
  • Stef

    (@serafinnyc)

    It’s hard to tell what you’ve done without you adding any of your snippets. But here’s a great article that I feel should help you do it the right way as well as check against your current configuration.

    Hope this helps.

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
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