Hello,
Thank you for reporting the issue you are facing with the “Remove category base” option in Rank Math’s General Settings menu and the WooCommerce tab. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.
It seems that enabling the “Remove category base” option is causing a problem with the case sensitivity of the category links, leading to 404 errors in Google Search Console for links indexed in Persian and Arabic with uppercase letters.
To address this issue, we recommend disabling the “Remove category base” option temporarily to ensure that the category links are accessible and indexed correctly by Google. This will prevent the mismatch in uppercase and lowercase letters causing 404 errors.
If you need further assistance or have any other questions, please feel free to reply to this ticket, and our support team will be more than happy to help.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We appreciate your feedback as it helps us improve our services.
Kind regards.
Sources:
Rank Math General Settings
How to Remove the Category Base From WordPress » Rank Math
How to Disable Custom Product Redirection in Rank Math » Rank Math
WordPress Permalink Structure & Changing Individual URLs » Rank Math
How to Optimize a Category Page » Rank Math
This bug will be fixed in future updates and can I use the “Remove category base” option?
My website at https://tehrantakhfif.ir/ has faced issues due to this bug, such as a high number of 404 errors in the search console. I am waiting for an update and bug fix. Thank you for Rank Math’s support.
Hello,
Thank you for your query and we are so sorry about the trouble this must have caused.
Please ensure that you are using the latest version of Rank Math plugin. If not yet, please do update them. You may refer to our changelog page here: https://rankmath.com/changelog/
If the issue persists, we would like to check this further on your website. Please edit the first post on this ticket and include your WordPress login in the designated Sensitive Data section.
Please do take a complete backup of your website before sharing the information with us.
It is completely secure and only our support staff has access to that section. If you want, you can use the below plugin to generate a temporary login URL to your website and share that with us instead:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/temporary-login-without-password/
You can use the above plugin in conjunction with the WP Security Audit Log to monitor what changes our staff might make on your website (if any):
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-security-audit-log/
We really look forward to helping you.
Greetings and thank you for following up on the issue.
I am using the latest free version of Rank Math, version 1.0.217. However, I believe there is no need for panel access. For testing and review, simply capitalize one of the letters in the following category link and you will see a 404 error:
https://volumebede.ir/%da%a9%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a7%db%8c-%d8%af%db%8c%d8%ac%db%8c%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%84/
Hello,
Our plugin doesn’t force the uppercase in the URLs. Please check your GSC account’s URL Inspection tool to determine where Google is discovering the uppercase URLs. You can also use the following plugin to force the lowercase: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-force-lowercase-urls/
Let us know how that goes. Looking forward to helping you.
Google, in order to better understand and process web content, converts and indexes links containing Persian characters or other non-Latin languages into uppercase English characters in a coded form.
However, the Rank Math plugin does not cause any errors or bugs in the conversion and matching of uppercase English characters in the default settings mode. However, if the “Remove category base” option is checked, uppercase characters in categories will encounter a 404 error.
You can see an example of Persian search results in the following link. Open the Persian links in Google results and then copy the page link in a new tab. You will notice that the English characters are uppercase.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=%D8%A7%D8%AF%DA%A9%D9%84%D9%86+%D8%A7%D9%88%D9%86%DB%8C%D8%B1%D9%88+%D8%A7%D8%B5%D9%84
All Persian links in Google are indexed with uppercase coded English characters. In Rank Math, if the “Remove category base” checkbox is checked, categories with uppercase characters will not open and a 404 error will be displayed.
Hello,
I can reproduce the issue on my end and have informed the devs about this. We will let you know once we have a fix for this.
We sincerely appreciate your patience in the meantime.
Please do not hesitate to let us know if you need our assistance with anything else.
Hello,
Thank you very much for the follow-up and excellent service provided by Rank Math.
I look forward to this issue being resolved.
Hello,
We’ll keep this support ticket open, and there’s no need for you to reply to this ticket anymore.
Rest assured, we will proactively update you right here as soon as the fix is released.
Your patience and cooperation in this matter are greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Hello,
Since we did not hear back from you for 15 days, we are assuming that you found the solution. We are closing this support ticket.
If you still need assistance or any other help, please feel free to open a new support ticket, and we will be more than happy to assist.
Thank you.
