![\"404](\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/404-page.jpg\")
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I found that there are several ways to force 404 errors in WordPress…<\/p>\n
Check 404 file exists<\/h2>\n
It is possible that WordPress is not configured properly to show a 404 page when it is required to do so. First, ensure your active WordPress theme has a 404.php<\/strong> file in the active theme’s folder. If not, you can simply save a 404.php file with the following text.<\/p>\n Then ensure that your server can identify the location of your 404.php file. First, test the exact location of the file in your browser to see it loads. Then you can add the following code on top of your WordPress folder .htaccess<\/strong> file to let it find the file.<\/p>\n If your WordPress installation is in a subdirectory called ‘abcd’, you might use this code.<\/p>\n We had another issue with 404 files that at first instance it showed a 404 error, then our caching plugin QuickCache cached the file to create an HTML file for that error page. Then if you check site headers<\/a> the page gave a 200 OK status meaning the page existed well \u00a0(this was similar to the feed caching<\/a> issue).<\/p>\n So we added this code to our 404.php<\/strong> template page in the first line even before the header coding was called for. \u00a0Add the following code<\/p>\n WordPress is a smart blogging tool and redirects 404 errors to the best possible matching URLs which it seems fit based on the visited URL keywords. Many of my 404 URLs were being redirected to similar working URLs, which might or might not be relevant but had similar keywords.<\/p>\n So we need to add the following code to theme functions.php<\/strong> to prevent this WordPress redirection ability to get pure 404 errors.<\/p>\n<?php get_header(); ?>\r\n <h1>Page Not Found<\/h1>\r\n<?php get_sidebar(); ?>\r\n<?php get_footer(); ?><\/code><\/pre>\nCheck 404 file works<\/h2>\n
ErrorDocument 404 \/index.php?error=404<\/code><\/p>\nErrorDocument 404 \/abcd\/index.php?error=404<\/code><\/p>\nDisable 404 Caching<\/h2>\n
<?php\r\nif (is_404()) {\r\n define('QUICK_CACHE_ALLOWED', false);\r\n}\r\n?><\/code>\u00a0<\/span><\/pre>\nDisable WordPress Smart Redirect<\/h2>\n
![\"404](\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/404-not-found.png\")
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