What's causing categories and tag links to go to error 404 page?

If you copy and paste numerical URL into bar, it will change to and find the correct page

That’s normal behaviour…. the numerical URL is your real URL, the text redirects to it through WP magic.

Have you also tried switching to the 2011 theme to test? Borked themes are perfectly capable of hosing up permalinks, or having bizarre redirects

Your .htaccess is the standard WP file, no issues there

EDIT – the mix of pretty and default links in your menu is pretty strange though. Is this a custom menu you made through the menu page? Did you drag and drop everything to place?

What happens if you use the default permalinks?

Now, I’m getting really confused.
I tried Esmi’s idea of using default permalinks – and leaving it there, rather than going back to Post name – and, incredibly, the Categories and Tags work.

However, all my permalinks with letters are now going to the 404 error page. So, if I now click on the Greek islands category in menu bar, it works fine with the URL: https://golovegreece.com/?cat=26. But if, through the menu, I try to get to, for example, Amorgos, the URL is https://golovegreece.com/amorgos/ and it’ll take me to the error page.

So, it does seem that I’ve got an issue with a mix of pretty and default links – as Rev Voodoo suggests. And, yes, I did set up the menu myself as a custom menu, dragging and dropping everything to place.

Any suggestions as to how I can fix all this? Thanks so far.

However, all my permalinks with letters are now going to the 404 error page.

Have you been editing individual permalinks manually?

No, I haven’t been doing this.

I changed the permalink settings from default to Post name early on in developing the site and went with the lettered permalinks it was generating. When creating the menu (Appearance>Menus), I’d copy the post URL (all with lettered permalinks) from the address bar and paste it in to URL field under Custom Links in the Menu page (Appearance>Menus). But now it seems that about two-thirds of the items showing in the Menu page (Appearance>Menus) have numbered permalinks and the other third are made up of letters.

For example, the URL for the Corfu post in the menu reads: https://golovegreece.com/corfu/

while the URL for Kefalonia reads: https://golovegreece.com/?p=1063

Any ideas? Thanks

I’d hate to suggest trying to make a new menu. That seems pretty labour intensive. BUt it seems like the first thing I can think of….

EDIT: wait… did the 404 only happen from within the menu, or was it also happening from the tags listed within the posts… cuz that obviously won’t be linked to the menu

When I have permalinks on default setting, then the tags, categories and the numbered posts work as normal. The lettered permalink posts don’t work from menu, but will work if you try and bring them up from within another post – the URL will be numbered not lettered, however.

So, if with permalinks on default setting, I go Home page>Menu>Greek Islands>Cyclades>Amorgos – Amorgos will appear in the address bar as https://golovegreece.com/amorgos/ and will open an error page. However, if I go Greek Island>Cyclades – and bring up the Cyclades category page (https://golovegreece.com/?cat=28) – and then click on Amorgos, this post will appear as normal as https://golovegreece.com/?p=1297.

If I go to Permalink Settings>Post name, then Home page>Menu>Greek Islands>Cyclades>Amorgos – then the Amorgos post works and appears as https://golovegreece.com/amorgos/, while if I go Greek Islands>Cyclades, the address comes up as: https://golovegreece.com/category/greek-islands/cyclades/, and the 404 page appears.

And when I have it on Permalink Settings>Post name, tags from within pages don’t work – for example, the Santorini tag generates this address: https://golovegreece.com/tag/santorini/ – and goes to 404; while if I have it on Permalink Settings>Default, and I click on a Santorini tag from within a post, the tag page with the following URL – https://golovegreece.com/?tag=santorini – works.

I was hoping I wouldn’t have to redo the menu, but if I have to, I have to – but is that what the problem is? A badly built menu? But how did it get so mangled?

Well, did you change up permalinks at all, for testing or anything, after having built the menu? I’m not sure if that would mangle things or not….

So here’s how your permalinks would work.

If permalinks are off, only numbered links will work, the text ones will not. They don’t exist if permalinks are off

If permalinks are on, numbered or letterd will work. The lettered link is just a rewrite to the number

I think you may need to rebuild the menu at some point…. but the fact that your tags within your post/page break with permalinks on means that there is some other problem here.

If you switch to the 2011 theme for a moment, and turn on permalinks, do the in page/post tag links work? I’m just wondering if the theme tag/cat is somehow jacked up

I switched to the 2011 theme and the problem is exactly the same as with Shoutbox theme. With permalinks on, categories and tags don’t work; with permalinks off, on default, they do.

And, no, I didn’t do anything with permalinks after building the menu. I have noticed, however, that the lettered permalinks tend to be associated with labels beginning with A, B, C, while the numbered permalinks are with labels beginning with letters further down the alphabet – so Amorgos, Anafi are lettered, while Milos, Mykonos and so on are numbered. So, there is some logic to what’s happened. It’s not completely random.

Thanks for help so far.

I think it might be time to start talking to your hosts. Sounds like here’s an issue on the server that is totally messing up the rewrites in your .htaccess file.

I’ll do that Esmi, because I don’t think it is a menu issue.

Thanks so far. Let’s see what Go Daddy has to say.

don’t think it is a menu issue

I believe you are quite correct. Since we also have the problem, when permalinks are on, happen with tags IN the post/page

that is not tied to your menu in any way.

On GoDaddy, with a standard .htaccess, and no plugins, everything should work. I was with them for years. What you are experiencing definitely points to a server side issue

My host – Go Daddy – says its reviewed .htaccess file and its okay:

I understand you have an issue with the links on your WordPress site not working. I have reviewed this and reviewed your .htaccess file there are no rewrites causing issues. When you click on a link on your site in the url it will show the path it is looking for the page. You have to make sure the link is being referenced correctly to the correct page.

So, I’m back to square one. I’ve also noticed that when I go Settings>Permalinks and choose Numeric, all tags, categories and links work – none go to error 404 page.

In Numeric:

Tags show up like this: https://golovegreece.com/archives/tag/islands
Categories show up like this: https://golovegreece.com/archives/category/celebrities
Posts show up like this: https://golovegreece.com/archives/1297 (this should be https://golovegreece.com/amorgos/)

Settings>Permalinks and then default or Day and name or Month and Name produce results where the categories and tags work, but the posts go to error 404; while choosing Settings>Permalinks>Post name ends up with posts working but categories and tags going to error page.

What I need is for permalinks to show post name, i.e. I want to have Settings> Permalinks>Post name.

Any more ideas as to what’s going on would be appreciated. Thanks.

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