The .htaccess Rules for all WordPress Permalinks

I recently performed a series of tests on a fresh installation of WordPress to determine the exact .htaccess rewrite rules that WordPress writes to its .htaccess file for various permalink configurations. In the WordPress General > Permalinks settings, WordPress lists six options for permalink structure:

Plain              http://example.com/?p=123
Day and name       http://example.com/2016/06/30/sample-post/
Month and name     http://example.com/2016/06/sample-post/
Numeric            http://example.com/archives/123
Post name          http://example.com/sample-post/
Custom Structure   http://example.com/%postname%/

These default permalink options employ the following Structure Tags:

Plain              (permalinks disabled)
Day and name       /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/
Month and name     /%monthnum%/%postname%/
Numeric            /archives/%post_id%/
Post name          /%postname%/
Custom Structure   (user-defined structure)

You can read more about WordPress permalinks at WordPress.org.

Testing

For the test, we began by enabling the “Day and name” permalink configuration. After saving our changes, we downloaded the .htaccess file that is located in the root directory of our WordPress installation:

/wordpress/.htaccess

We then copied the rules and recorded them in this post (see next section). To verify that the .htaccess rules are the same for all types of permalinks, we tested each of the different permalink options and compared the results. Further, we tested the site for proper functionality during each round of testing.

Once we had determined the correct permalink rules for WordPress installed in its own directory, we repeated the entire test with WordPress installed in the site’s root directory. This test revealed that the permalink rules are different depending on the location of the WordPress installation. Otherwise, the permalink rules are identical, as explained below.

Results

So after much testing, we conclude the following results:

• Given any WordPress installation, the .htaccess rules are identical for all permalink options.
• The .htaccess rules only differ when WordPress is installed in its own directory vs. WordPress installed in the site’s root directory.

Surely this information is available elsewhere online, however we were experiencing several inconsistencies related to permalink structure that inspired us to determine for ourselves the precise .htaccess rules for all WordPress permalinks.

The htaccess Rules for all WordPress Permalinks

Without further ado, the .htaccess rules for all WordPress permalinks¹ are either of the following², depending on where WordPress is installed.

1) If WordPress is installed in the site’s root directory:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

2) OR, if WordPress is installed in its own directory, /wordpress/:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
RewriteBase /wordpress/
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /wordpress/index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

Notice the only two differences between these two sets of rules: the value of the RewriteBase and RewriteRule directives. Specifically, when WordPress is installed in the site’s root directory, the value is /. Otherwise, if WordPress is installed in its own directory, the value is the name of the directory, which is /wordpress/ in this example. So if you have WordPress installed in its own directory, make sure to change /wordpress/ to the actual directory name.

Update

WordPress now (finally) has an official page about .htaccess at WordPress.org. There you can find the same permalink rules that are provided above. If they are different in any way, please let me know so I can update the article. Thank you.

Footnotes

¹ These results are valid for standard permalink structures invoked via a standard WordPress install and may not operate effectively for non-standard or highly specialized configurations. We assume that if you are hard at work hacking and tweaking, you must know what you are doing.

² Note that WordPress also adds several of inline comments when it automatically adds its permalink rules to your .htaccess file. The inline comments look like this:

# The directives (lines) between "BEGIN WordPress" and "END WordPress" are
# dynamically generated, and should only be modified via WordPress filters.
# Any changes to the directives between these markers will be overwritten.

The comments are included after the # BEGIN WordPress line. Because they are comments (i.e., begin with a pound sign #), they are ignored by Apache and have no effect on anything.

About the Author

Jeff Starr = Web Developer. Security Specialist. WordPress Buff.