Urgent Assistance Needed for Permalink Conflict Issue - Support

Resolved Wakesquare
3 months, 1 week ago

Rank Math free

Dear Rank Math Support Team,

I hope this message finds you well. I am reaching out because I am experiencing a critical issue with my WordPress site related to permalinks, which I believe may be connected to your plugin.

I modified the permalink structure for a custom post type on my site, but despite these changes, the old permalinks remain active and accessible. This is causing significant confusion, as both the old and new URLs show the same content. The involved URLs are as follows:

(in sensitive data)

As you can see, the constant /park-card/ changes for all the directory card pages. I need to ensure that the old URLs return a 404 error before implementing a 301 redirect.

I have performed extensive debugging and troubleshooting, including:

Deactivating all plugins (including Rank Math) to check for conflicts.
Clearing all caches (browser, WordPress, and server).
Forcing a regeneration of permalinks.
Checking the database for any issues.
Performing a search and replace to update old URLs with the new ones.
Despite these efforts, the problem persists. I also contacted my hosting provider, and after thorough investigation, they were unable to resolve the issue.

Given the situation, I am concerned that there may be a conflict or underlying problem related to the Rank Math plugin. Could you kindly assist me in identifying if anything within your plugin could be causing this conflict? I am in urgent need of resolving this matter, and any guidance or support you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your attention to this issue. I look forward to your prompt response.

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

RankBot
3 months, 1 week ago
Hello,

We apologize for the issue you are facing with the permalink conflict on your WordPress site. Thank you for providing detailed information about the troubleshooting steps you’ve already taken.

It sounds like you are experiencing a situation where old permalinks are still accessible even after modifying the permalink structure. This can sometimes happen due to conflicts with themes or other plugins, which can lead to unexpected behavior like the one you’re describing.

Here are a few additional steps you can take to further diagnose the issue:
1. Theme or Plugin Conflict: As you have already deactivated all plugins, including Rank Math, we recommend performing a quick conflict check by enabling the Troubleshooting mode in your WordPress site. This will allow you to disable your current theme and check if the issue persists. If the old URLs still work, it may indicate that the theme is causing the conflict.
2. Check .htaccess File: Ensure that your .htaccess file is correctly configured. Sometimes, incorrect rules in this file can lead to issues with URL redirection. You can regenerate it by going to Settings > Permalinks in your WordPress dashboard and simply clicking Save Changes without making any changes.
3. Redirects Setup: If you want to ensure that old URLs return a 404 error, you might need to set up specific redirects or rules in your .htaccess file or through Rank Math’s redirection settings. You can find more information on setting up redirects here.
4. Caching Issues: Since you’ve cleared all caches, ensure that there are no server-side caching mechanisms (like Varnish or CDN caching) that might be serving old content.
If after trying these steps the issue still persists, please reply to this ticket, and a human agent from our support team will take over and assist you further. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we work to resolve this matter for you.

Thank you for raising this concern, and we look forward to helping you get this sorted out!
Jeremy
3 months ago

Hello,

Thank you for your query and we are so sorry about the trouble this must have caused.

Can you please confirm if disabling our plugin will render the old permalink 404. If yes, we might need to take a closer look at the settings. Please edit the first post on this ticket and include your WordPress & FTP logins in the designated Sensitive Data section.

Please do take a complete backup of your website before sharing the information with us.

It is completely secure and only our support staff has access to that section. If you want, you can use the below plugin to generate a temporary login URL to your website and share that with us instead:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/temporary-login-without-password/

You can use the above plugin in conjunction with the WP Security Audit Log to monitor what changes our staff might make on your website (if any):

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-security-audit-log/

We really look forward to helping you.

Wakesquare
3 months ago

Rank Math free

Hi,

Thank you for your support. In fact, even with Rank Math deactivated, the old permalink is still accessible. I initially thought that Rank Math might have interfered with this permalink change. Can you confirm 100% that if I deactivate Rank Math, it cannot be related to your plugin in any way?

Thank you for your assistance.

Jaideep Asrani
3 months ago

Hello,

The issue isn’t related to our plugin since it persists even when the plugin is disabled. This seems to be the default behavior of the plugin you are using to generate the directories. Even if you visit the URL with a random base, it will still load the same page. However, our plugin adds the correct canonical URL to prevent duplicate URLs from getting indexed in the SERPs.

You should proceed with setting up the redirections to prevent Google from crawling the old URLs.

Please do not hesitate to let us know if you need our assistance with anything else.

Wakesquare
3 months ago

Rank Math free

Hi, thank you very much for your response and the provided guidelines. I’ve opened a support ticket with the Directorist plugin because I haven’t been able to resolve this issue in any way. I understand that RankMath is not involved in this error, as you’ve confirmed.

However, aside from the old permalink issue, I tried a quick regex redirect to see if that would at least work. This is the formula I used:

^directory/wakepark/(.*)$ /directory/park-card/$1

Unfortunately, it’s not working as expected and isn’t performing the redirect. Is there something I’m doing wrong or overlooking?

Lastly, I’d like to take advantage of your expertise for some advice. If the redirect works correctly, in your opinion, would it be wise to permanently remove the old cached URLs, or once I verify that the redirect functions as expected, could I safely ignore the issue? Do you think this could cause conflicts on the site, indexing problems, or even URL ranking penalties?

Additionally, you mentioned that the plugin automatically adds the correct canonical URL to prevent duplicates in the SERPs. Should I manually check if the canonical page is being detected, or does the plugin handle this automatically without any further input from my side?

Thanks in advance for your advice!
Ike
3 months ago
Hello,

Please use the following regex redirection rule and see if it works for you:
```
Source URL: directory/wakepark/(.*)
Redirection Type: Regex
Destination URL: /directory/park-card/$1
```
Regarding the canonical URLs, Rank Math automatically adds them to avoid duplicate content issues, so you should be fine. However, you can verify this manually if you want to double-check that the correct canonical URL is being detected.

We hope this helps. Please let us know if you have further questions or concerns.

Thank you.
Wakesquare
3 months ago

Rank Math free

Hi,

Thank you very much for your response! I’ve tested the redirect rule you provided, and it works perfectly. For now, I’ve kept the redirect disabled as I’m trying to resolve the old permalink issue today. If I’m unable to fix it, I’ll activate a temporary 302 redirect to avoid indexing issues.

What do you think of this temporary solution? Could it be a good compromise to manage the situation?

Thanks again for your support!

Jaideep Asrani
3 months ago

Hello,

Even if the duplicate permalink issue is resolved, you should still keep the redirects to make sure that search engines and users accessing the old links are redirected to the new ones. You can remove the redirects once they stop getting hits.

Hope that helps and please do not hesitate to let us know if you need our assistance with anything else.

RankBot
2 months ago

Hello,

Since we did not hear back from you for 15 days, we are assuming that you found the solution. We are closing this support ticket.

If you still need assistance or any other help, please feel free to open a new support ticket, and we will be more than happy to assist.

Thank you.

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

The ticket ‘Urgent Assistance Needed for Permalink Conflict Issue’ is closed to new replies.