Removing the "index.php" from links?

Have you checked wp-admin/options-general.php ? Go there and make sure index.php isn’t in the “Site address (URL)” field.

Nope, it’s not mentioned in there. And on the Settings/General page it says that the wordpress and site URLs are both https://spicapublishing.co.uk

I followed the instructions on this page to move it (under Moving WordPress Within Your Site): https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Moving_WordPress

The only thing is that I don’t seem to have a .htaccess file, so I couldn’t change anything to do with that. Do I have to tinker with the SQL database directly to fix this?

then your permalink settings must have index.php in them – check
admin – settings – permalinks

edit, I noticed you are on a zeus web server – you may need to get your host to fix this

Yes, they do have index.php in the permalinks. I can access the SQL database though, so is it possible to change it in there?

the thing is, if you did, it would likely break the install and lead to 404 or 500 errors
ask them if they can enable the server to use the fancy permalinks

I just had a look in the SQL (didn’t touch anything! ?? ) and in the wp_options part it has home and siteurl set as https://spicapublishing.co.uk, but under permalink_structure it has “/index.php/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/” – apart from a mention in the rewrite_rules entry apparently to do with robots.txt, that’s the only mention I can find on index.php there.

BTW, is “fancy permalinks” the technical term? Or is there something more specific I can ask them to enable? ??

I found this, sounds like it might do the trick:

https://www.adamchristie.co.uk/wordpress/seo-friendly-wordpress-urls-on-namesco-zeus-servers/

It involves running a rewrite.script , seems straightforward enough to do. Would it remove the index.php from the URLs of the pages too (rather than just the blog posts?)

Also, for added info, there’s a custom structure listed in the Permalinks part of the Settings, and it says “/index.php/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname” – put if I just delete the /index.php part then all the existing links get broken. If I put it back in, then it’s fine.

I’ve currently got the Permalinks set to “Day and Name” and that’s what’s showing the index.php before all the pages and blog posts.

Aha! I tried that link out and it works! Also works with new pages and new posts. Brilliant! (possibly not surprising since my site is hosted on the namesco servers ?? )

All good then. Thanks Samuel B, I wouldn’t have found that if you hadn’t mentioned that the site was on a zeus server ??

Hi EDG,
I have the same problem. I found many rewrites code, but any of those works.

How did you do to fix this? Many thanks!