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Joomla – SH404SEF Cannot Redirect 404 Pages in .htaccess

In order to optimize your Joomla site and make it SEO friendly there is an extension that you should download called sh404SEF.  This Joomla extension helps you create Search Engine Friendly (SEF) URLS which is important in generating higher rankings for links on your site.    This extension is also one of the Extensions I listed as one of the Joomla Extensions that you cannot live without.  The sh404SEF rewrites Joomla URL to user-friendly format (SEF URL or URL rewriting).    This is a great extension but one issue with installing the sh404SEF is that your Joomla site no longer looks at the .htaccess file to deal with 404 error messages.  If you used the redirect solution I posted earlier where you can add a line to your .htaccess file and all 404 error pages will redirect to your homepage, this will not work anymore.

If you have the sh404SEF extension installed and have problems with redirecting your 404 error pages to your homepage, here is a simple solution to resolve your problem:

1.   Go to your Joomla file server or FTP server

2.   Edit the file ‘templates/system/error.php’

3.  After line 19, just before the </head> tag, add the following line:

<meta HTTP-EQUIV=”REFRESH” content=”0; url=/”>

4.  Save the file and refresh your site.

Done! If users encounter 404 error messages on your Joomla site they will be redirected to your homepage immediately without delay or an error page.

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