Every Page on My WordPress Site Shows a 404 Except the Homepage

What's happening

Your homepage loads normally, but click any link and you get "404 Not Found" or "Oops! That page can't be found". Your pages and posts are still in the dashboard, unchanged. What's broken is the link between a web address like yoursite.com/about and the page it's meant to show. WordPress keeps those address rules, called permalinks, in a small settings file on the server, and when that file is missing, wrong or ignored, every address except the homepage stops resolving.

The pages aren't gone. Nothing needs rebuilding. The rules need putting back.

Why it happens

The classic trigger is a move: the site was migrated to a new host, moved to a new address, or restored from a backup, and the settings file didn't come with it or the new server handles it differently. It also happens after a hosting change that switched the server software, after a security plugin rewrote that file, after a plugin update, or when someone edited the file by hand. Occasionally a host's own update changes a setting on their side and every site on the server needs its rules refreshed.

If you're seeing a different pattern, with the whole site, homepage included, showing an error, that's a different problem. Start with Is my website down, or is it just me?.

What you can safely try

• Check the pages are still there. Dashboard, then Pages and Posts. If they're listed, relax: this is the easy kind of 404.
• Open Settings, then Permalinks, and click Save Changes without changing anything. This asks WordPress to rewrite its address rules. For a lot of sites this is the whole fix. It's safe to do.
• Think back to what changed: a migration, a new host, a backup restore, a plugin update. Note the date.
• Don't change the permalink style (for example from "Post name" to "Plain") to make it work. It does make the pages load, but every link on the internet to your site breaks, and so do your search listings.
• Don't edit the settings file yourself unless you know exactly what it should contain. A wrong line there takes the whole site down.

When to call us

If saving the permalinks doesn't bring the pages back, the cause is on the server: a settings file the server isn't reading, a setting the host changed, or a plugin that keeps rewriting it. We work on business websites, and we fix this at a flat rate you approve before any work starts. We restore the address rules, confirm every page and post resolves, and check that your search listings still point to the right places. Start with Emergency WordPress Fixes.