Great plugin

Hi @kkk07 –

I just tested the plugin on a staging site, and it’s working fine for me when /tag/ is in the URL.

domain.com/tag/test-tag/ is a working tag archive page.

domain.com/tag/test-tag-broken/ is a 404, and it’s showing my Custom 404 Page.

If you go to Settings > Permalinks and click “Save” (don’t change any settings, just re-save the page), does that help?

If not, what URL structure are your permalinks set to?

Thanks,
Andrew

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for your answer.

Here’s our structure: https://steadyincomeinvestments.com/sample-post/

Example of deleted post: https://steadyincomeinvestments.com/jeff-bishops-total-alpha-program-your-jump-on-the-week/ . This one goes to out Custom 404. It works here.

Example of deleted tag: https://steadyincomeinvestments.com/tag/early-stage-trader-fraud/ – this one goes to “Nothing Found”.

Re-save my setting in “permalinks” – no change.

Thank you.

Hi @kkk07 ,

I just deleted my test-tag archive, reloaded the /tag/test-tag/ page and it worked correctly for me. (So, deleting a tag isn’t the issue.)

Perhaps it’s a caching issue. This could be the case if you installed the plugin after initially seeing the default 404 page on that URL. Have you cleared all caches?

Or maybe another plugin is conflicting. Could you please share your list of plugins? You can get that from Tools > Site Health > Info > Active Plugins.

And, what Theme is your site using?

Thanks,
Andrew

Thank you, Andrew.

All caches are cleared.

Theme is GeneratePress and here’s a list with active plugins:

Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protection Version 5.3.3 by Automattic – Anti-spam Team
Classic Editor Version 1.6.5 by WordPress Contributors
Classic Widgets Version 0.3 by WordPress Contributors
Display Posts Version 3.0.2 by Bill Erickson
GenerateBlocks Version 1.9.1 by Tom Usborne
Imagify Version 2.2.2 by Imagify – Optimize Images & Convert WebP & Avif
OptinMonster Version 2.16.5 by OptinMonster Popup Builder Team
Redirection Version 5.5.0 by John Godley
SEOPress Version 8.2 by The SEO Guys at SEOPress
SEOPress PRO Version 8.2.1 by The SEO Guys at SEOPress
Smart Custom 404 Error Page Version 11.4.8 by NerdPress
Speculative Loading Version 1.3.1 by WordPress Performance Team
Table of Contents Plus Version 2408 by Michael Tran
Trending/Popular Post Slider and Widget Version 1.8.1 by WP OnlineSupport, Essential Plugin | Auto-updates disabled
Ultimate Blocks Version 3.2.2 by Ultimate Blocks
Wordfence Security Version 7.11.7 by Wordfence
WP Rocket Version 3.17.0.2 by WP Media

Thanks, that’s very helpful.

I’m guessing that there’s a rule in either SEOPress PRO or Redirection that is causing the site to return the standard Not Found page — and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s issuing a 410 (“Content Gone”) response as well (this won’t be a visible difference, but if you open DevTools > Network, load the page, and then look at the response headers on the main page it will show you the status code).

https://www.seopress.org/features/301-redirects/ (note this has an “Automatic Redirects” feature that detects when something is deleted – I know Yoast will offer to issue a 410, so maybe this does the same).

Can you please look in Redirection’s and SEOPress’s lists of redirects? I bet there’s one there for your deleted tag’s URL.

Sorry, I just realized you shared the exact URLs above (it’s early here and I need more coffee!). ?

Curiously, the URL showing the default error page:
https://steadyincomeinvestments.com/tag/early-stage-trader-fraud/

Is responding with a 200 (OK) status code — not a 404 or 410.

If I got to another URL with /tag/ in it, but for a tag that never existed, it also works correctly, returning your custom page, and a 410 response:
https://steadyincomeinvestments.com/tag/this-tag-never-existed/

So this does point back to something conflicting specifically on this URL, and specifically because it was a tag that existed and was later deleted. Very curious to see what you find in the SEOPress and Redirection settings!

Ok. I don’t want to mess up with Steady website – so I just installed your plugin on another one.

Then I went into Plugins and deactivate SEO PRESS and Redirection plugins.

Now all deleted ones must go to “Contact Us” 404 Custom page

The result is the same:

Example of deleted post: https://www.optionswealthmachinereview.com/options-wealth-machine-december2015-webinar-replay/ – works correctly and goes to Contact Us

Example of previously existed, but deleted tag:

https://www.optionswealthmachinereview.com/tag/the-speculator-eric-fry/ – Nothing found

There must be something different about your setup that is conflicting (and on both sites). I think the 200 response on the deleted “tag” URL is a big clue here — somehow your sites are still returning a valid 200 response, even though WordPress is showing the default “Not Found” page itself. And I think with the 200 response, Smart Custom 404 Page won’t “activate” to show the custom page.

Are they both hosted on the same account? Does that hosting have any sort of caching or accelerator plugin? (Maybe it’s another layer of caching that needs to be cleared, at the server level).

Or perhaps there’s a different plugin conflicting. Would you be able to deactivate all other plugins, except Smart Custom 404 Page, on one of the sites, to rule any other plugins? (Or maybe you can clone that site to a staging environment?)

All plugins except Smart Custom 404 Page are no longer active. Same result.

And yes – it returns 200 code – https://http.app/test/0qG3EEfjNcJy3nbZ6H5L

Forgot to mention: Bluehost and GoDaddy are the hosting companies.

And just something weird:

https://www.optionswealthmachinereview.com/tag/the-speculator-eric-fry/amp/ – this one works

https://www.optionswealthmachinereview.com/tag/the-speculator-eric-fry/ – this one doesn’t work

So where’s the problem???

Hi @kkk07,

I was just able to reproduce the issue on my staging site. WordPress will return a 200 response and the default “Nothing Found” message if the tag itself still exists but there are no posts with the tag.

Screenshot: https://share.nrdp.rs/eDuZXPop

To double-check: Have you fully deleted the tag itself from Posts > Tags? Or did you only remove the tag from any post(s) that had the tag assigned to them?

I think that everything works fine now!

The tag was only removed from the assigned post, not in general.

Now I deleted it from “Posts-Tags” and I guess it works now in the way it supposed to work.

Thank you for your help!

Hooray! Glad we were able to figure it out– and that everything is indeed working properly! ??

(I have a quick favor to ask: If you’ve been happy with our help — and since the plugin is working correctly — would you be so kind as to upgrade your rating at the start of this thread? That would really help us out! ??)

Cheers!

Did it! Thanks.

Awesome, thanks! Much appreciated. ??