Today I would like to talk to you about how and when you should flush your permalinks.  If you are confused as to what permalinks are just take a look up above, in your address bar. You will see what is commonly referred to as a URL.  A permalink  is just another name for the URL that you are seeing in your address bar.  

 

Reasons you would need to flush your permalinks:

 

1. You recently changed your domain name and have noticed that when you visit your website it keeps defaulting to the old domain name. ( So frustrating!!!! )

 

2.  You have recently published a new page/ post and when you visit that page/post you are receiving a 403 Error that displays something like this :

 

3. Forbidden: You don't have permission to access [directory] on this server

 

  How to flush your permalinks:

 

Head over to your dashboard/admin and scroll down to the  and then click on  
 
[fac_icon icon=”arrow-circle-o-left”] If you did it right you should now be in the Permalinks settings page.  
 

From here you are going to click a setting that is not currently selected and then change it back to the Post Name setting.  ( Warning ) Among the WordPress community some advise using Post name as your permalink setting while others say to change it to the Day and name setting.  For our purposes here we will stick with Post name. ( Warning )

 

Next you will go down to the blue save button and click it.  While remaining on the permalink page you are going to refresh your browser/client.  This can be done by holding down f5/shift + R ( Windows ) or Command +  R ( Mac ).  Now that you are flushed your permalinks you are ready to check out the result.

 
Head back to your website by navigating to the upper left hand corner of your screen    Hover over the house icon and then click visit site.  Now you should be viewing your homepage.  If you are,  you may still not see a change.  Don’t worry all you need to do is refresh your homepage.  
 

If you flushed your permalinks due to a recent domain change then your problems should be resolved. If it is not then you will need to head back over to Settings -> General -> Site Address( make sure this has the new domain name ) –> WordPress Address ( this needs the new domain name too ) -> Save You should be ready to rock and roll!

 

If you flushed your permalinks due to a 403 Error, then you will need to navigate back to the problem child page/post to see if it has been resolved.  If the permalink flush did not resolve the error, then create a new page, give it a different name, copy and paste in your old content, save and refresh.  You should be back in business baby!!!!