There’s no need for plugins or complicated solutions to remove the /blog/ slug from the WordPress post permalink URL structure created by WP Multisite.
Follow these step-by-step instructions to quickly fix your permalinks.
When enabling WordPress Multisite; all post URLs turn into this format:
http://www.webhostwhat.com/blog/2017/08/01/remove-blog-slug-from-wordpress-multisite-without-plugin/
By default it’s not possible to change the “blog” part by going to the permalink settings of your blog — causing a lot of confusion online.
Here’s how to remove the “blog” slug & change to whatever format:
Step 1. Navigate to WordPress dashboard.
Step 2. Navigate to My Sites –> Network Admin –> Sites
Step 3. Choose to Edit the main site
Step 4. Navigate to Settings of the site
Step 5. Look for the Permalink Structure setting; and change this:
/blog/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/
to this for example:
/%postname%/
Important! Keep reading this is not everything.
Step 6. Once Permalink Structure is satisfactory; Save Changes
Step 7. When you try to open posts on your WordPress blog; you will get a “404 Page Not Found” error — don’t worry everything going to plan!
Step 8. Go back to the Dashboard of the main site with broken posts.
Step 9. Navigate to Permalinks under Settings & don’t do anything
You are done — 404 error is fixed and blog slug is gone; Enjoy!
Seriously. Just visiting the permalinks settings page will fix everything — this is a working method; tried and tested on this website with the latest version of WordPress.
I Hope you enjoyed this little easy guide on removing the blog slug from post URLs for WordPress without a plugin; when using Multisite.
Comments welcome!
Thanks. It’s work. 😀
Good to know! Thanks for your comment.
Works. Thanks!
Greatness!
Awesome, everyone else has this convoluted, ridiculous explanation for how to do this — and your tutorial is simple and works perfectly. THANKS!
Thank you. That motivated me to write this post 🙂
That’s some good stuff! You saved me some hair! Thank You!
I have noticed the /blog on the main site by default and was looking for a solution, and found this post.
Quite handy, I must say, at least it allows us to define what we wish without installing “another plugin”.
Thank you for sharing this easy, and straightforward advice.
Thank you very much!!!
Seems to be doing the trick still in 2020.
You are very welcome, thank you.
Worked like a charm. Thanks Tim!
Thank you.
It does doesn’t it 🙂
Thank you pretty much for sharing the massive information to us. It
is very useful and informative.
Please keep blogging new updates.
Thanks
DedicatedHosting4u.com
Don’t know how ‘massive’ just a simple guide.
Thanks anyway.
Thank you. Still works in 2020 with current version of WP. Seen so many complex fixes to resolve this and yours is so simple. Works perfectly.
Great to know, thanks for your feedback.
Cool !! … I can’t believe that just visiting the permalinks section will solve the problem… thank you!
Glad to know it’s still working for others.
Much thanks for your comment!
Brilliant, it worked! Thanks so much, it really helped me! I loved the “mportant! Keep reading this is not everything.” comment – of course you caught me just before I clicked away at that point without bothering to read further 🙂
Thanks, so glad it did the trick =)
Thanks!
When I hit save, I keep getting an error message = 403 Access denied
Hello Niyi Adebayo,
That means your server is using Web Application Firewall or a security plugin to block the attempt.
In this case, what you should do is white list your IP at the security tool.
I’m a WordPress Support Agent at WPMU DEV and I white list the IP of the client on the Web Application Firewall integrated into our servers to stop the 403 Access Denied error.
PD: I found this great guide today, sorry for the lateness.