WordPress Permalinks issue with Bluehost

403 errorIf you’ve tried running WordPress on Bluehost, you may have run into this:  you change your Permalink Settings, and the site no longer works.  You get “403 Permission Denied”.

The fix is pretty simple.  Just edit the .htaccess file in the blog’s root directory and add the line Options +FollowSymlinks. I put it after <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> because that was suggested by the article that I found on the interwebs.

I don’t know why I’ve only had to do this with Bluehost, but their tech support told me that they don’t have any plans to fix whatever the underlying issue is.

2 thoughts on “WordPress Permalinks issue with Bluehost

  1. Jason

    Not too surprising, Karl.
    We’ve had BlueHost simply shutdown our (business) accounts – on which Production systems depended – without warning four times. It’s quite handy actually, because it helps us identify those sub-systems that are still relying on the moronic, bumbling monolith. While “just dump em” is rarely a helpful suggestion, it’s been extremely effective for us.
    Good to know you’ve found a work around for those stuck with BlueHost.

    Reply

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