[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #63544: Provide a way to switch off the redirect_canonical() function

[WordPress Trac]

#63544: Provide a way to switch off the redirect_canonical() function
-------------------------+-----------------------------
 Reporter:  lowellj55    |      Owner:  (none)
     Type:  enhancement  |     Status:  new
 Priority:  normal       |  Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Canonical    |    Version:  6.8
 Severity:  normal       |   Keywords:
  Focuses:               |
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 I intentionally deprecated a page on the website. Subsequently, Google
 Search Console reported a soft 404 error on that page. The reason is that
 WordPress was redirecting to a different, unrelated page. I had to add
 code to function.php to prevent the redirect. An administrator should be
 able to turn the redirect function on or off.


 Problem:
 Requests for url https://mnbreakfast.org/roster/
 Are being redirected to https://mnbreakfast.org/rosterresponse/

 curl -I https://mnbreakfast.org/roster/

 HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
 Connection: keep-alive
 X-WS-RateLimit-Limit: 1000
 X-WS-RateLimit-Remaining: 999
 Date: Wed, 28 May 2025 16:32:36 GMT
 Server: Apache
 Expires: Wed, 11 Jan 1984 05:00:00 GMT
 Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate, max-age=0, no-store, private
 X-Redirect-By: WordPress
 Location: https://mnbreakfast.org/rosterresponse/

 Here's What’s Likely Happening:
 When a user (or Googlebot) requests a non-existent URL like /roster/,
 WordPress guesses you meant /rosterresponse/ and automatically 301
 redirects to it — especially if:
 •       The slugs are similar
 •       There is no /roster/ page (published, draft, or trashed)
 This behavior is part of WordPress's redirect_canonical() function.

 Added this snippet to functions.php
 add_filter('redirect_canonical', function($redirect_url, $requested_url) {
     if (strpos($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], '/roster/') === 0) {
         return false;
     }
     return $redirect_url;
 }, 10, 2);

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/63544>
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