Quick fix for 404 error in Wordpress category / tag page

Just a quick fix for a common problem: Sometimes, especially after switching themes, wordpress will generate 404 errors on the category and tag pages. There might be multiple reasons – and also multiple solutions – to this, but I’m usually very successful with this:

Go to your WordPress backend, click Settings, click Permalinks. Make sure the category base is “category” and the tag base is “tag” (unless you have some VERY weird special settings) and simply press the “save changes” button. Even if nothing has changed, clicking the button will probably make your category and tag pages work again now.

Don’t forget to clear your WordPress cache for testing.

This article was written quite a while ago (7 years), please keep this in mind when using the information written here. Links, code and commands might be outdated or broken.

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11 Comments

Rigel

June 23, 2020 12:50 pm

This fixed my problem!

Reply
Tracey

May 1, 2020 3:39 am

This worked for me in 2020!

Reply
okegima

May 11, 2018 4:41 pm

am still having 404 error on /category/ page.

Reply
Parul Bansal

September 18, 2017 7:37 pm

its not working for me also

Reply
Lucia Mark

September 11, 2017 4:01 am

It’s working On my blog. Thank’s @Chris :)

Reply
Ginson

August 13, 2017 8:58 am

Not work for me, I’m so sad

Reply
Bianca Caruana

August 4, 2017 1:51 am

Thanks so much! This worked for me too :)

Reply
Art

June 29, 2017 9:13 am

Thanks man! Still works in 2017 : ) It was merely a caching issue, but your solution works. Don’t forget to clear the cache people.

Reply
ONLLY NIPU

December 4, 2015 10:11 am

Thnx dude you are awesome Love you boss

Reply
Vikas R. Srivastava

October 18, 2015 7:39 pm

Wow..it was really quick. It saved my time to fix the issue. Thanks

Reply