Would you like to make it so that when people can’t find a page on your WordPress website, they’re automatically taken to your homepage instead? Doing this can keep more people on your site and help them find other helpful stuff.
In this article, we’ll teach you how to make your 404 error page send visitors to your homepage in WordPress.
Why we need to redirect 404 error on homepage?
Well, when someone tries to go to a page on your WordPress site that doesn’t exist, WordPress shows them a “404 error” page. This page might look different depending on your website’s theme.
When people see the default 404 page on your site, most of them tend to leave quickly. This can make your bounce rate go up and hurt your rankings on search engines.
That’s why it’s a good idea to make a custom 404 page. But if you want a quick fix for now, you can follow the steps in this tutorial to send people to your homepage when they encounter a 404 error.
In a perfect world, you’d also send specific 404 errors to the most relevant pages. With that said, let’s learn how to redirect all 404 errors to your homepage. We’ll cover code methods and show you how to make custom redirects for individual pages or home pages.
Redirect All 404 Errors to the Home Page Using Code
If you don’t want to use a plugin and prefer a code-based solution, you can redirect all 404 pages to your homepage with a simple code snippet.
Here’s how to do it:
- Create a new file in your WordPress theme folder and name it “404.php.” If your theme already has a “404.php” file, you should edit that one instead.
- To edit this file, you’ll need to connect to your WordPress hosting account using an FTP client or their file manager tool.
This allows you to make changes to the way your theme handles 404 errors and directs them to your homepage.
Once you’ve connected to your website, you’ll find the “404.php” file in your WordPress theme’s folder. To make the necessary change, add the following code as the very first line in your “404.php” file:
<?php
header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
header("Location: ".get_bloginfo('url'));
exit();
?>Next, save the 404.php file and reupload it to your theme directory using FTP or your hosting control panel. Now, when a page is not found, instead of seeing a 404 page, visitors will be redirected to your WordPress home page.
