What is a 403 site error?

403 Forbidden is one of the most common errors that occurs on almost all sites, regardless of what engine they run on or what technologies they use. If you've been running a blog, online store, or portal for at least a few months, it's very likely that you've encountered such a problem. Read on to find out what 403 Forbidden is, how to fix this error, and what are the three main reasons why it appears.

Reasons for the appearance of error 403 on the site

Text appears instead of the content of the web page in cases where access to this web page is closed by the person who administers the resource or site hosting . You should act in the event of such an error, because the risks of losing customers who have encountered it grow with every second. And before talking about ways to eliminate 403 Error Forbidden, we note that the main reasons for its appearance:

incorrect .htaccess syntax;
incorrectly set access rights to directories on the server;
malfunctions of plugins and add-ons.

How to fix 403 error on WordPress

So, now you know what a 403 error on a website means and to fix it, first connect to the website via FTP using FileZilla. And then...

Re-create .htaccess. This file, which is located in the root directory of the site, specifies the Apache server settings. For example, rules for 301 redirects, forwarding from http to https and many others. .htaccess has its own syntax, errors in which can cause a 403 Forbidden Error to appear.

To recreate this file, do the following:

1. In the lower left window of the FTP client, select the place on the computer where you want to download .htaccess, and in the lower right - click on this file with the right mouse button (right mouse button) and select "Download". You have backed up .htaccess and can now safely proceed with the next steps.
2. Delete .htaccess from the server by clicking on it in the right window of the PCM FTP client and selecting "Delete".
3. Go to WordPress Workshop and select Settings > Permalinks. Click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page.

If the 403 error is gone after doing these steps, the problem was a corrupted .htaccess. If the problem is not solved, read on.

Change access rights. Another common reason why 403 Forbidden appears is incorrectly defined access to files and folders on the site. This can happen for various reasons and does not depend on which type of site hosting is chosen - a virtual server or shared hosting. To resolve this issue, follow these steps:

1. Right-click on the root directory in the upper right window of the FTP client and select "File Attributes...".
2. In the "Numeric value" line, write 755 or 750, select the "Project to subdirectories" checkbox, select the "Apply to directories only" radio button, and click "OK".
3. Repeat point 1.
4. In the "Numeric value" line, write 644 or 640, select the "Project to subdirectories" checkbox, select the "Apply to files only" radio button, and click "OK".
5. Right-click on the wp-config.php file (located in the root directory) in the lower right window of the FTP client, select "File permissions...", enter 440 or 400 in the "Numeric value" field and click OK.

If the problem has not disappeared, it may be due to incorrect operation of WordPress plugins.

Read also : What are keywords and how to choose them .

Deactivate plugins. Bugs in WordPress plugins or their incompatibility with the current version of the engine can cause Error 403 to appear. Here's how to fix a 403 site error caused by problems with engine plugins:

1. Navigate to the wp-content directory using an FTP client and rename the plugins directory to plugins-stop. By renaming this folder, you will disable all WordPress plugins.
2. Go to the site and check if the 403 error has disappeared. If so, the problem was really hidden in one of the plugins. To determine which one, follow these steps.
3. Rename the plugins-stop directory to plugins and change to it. In this directory, you will see a list of all installed WordPress plugins. Rename the first one by adding -stop to the end of the folder name, go to the site and check if the 403 error is gone. If not, rename the directory of the second plugin in the list in the same way. Check again if the error is showing on the site. Repeat the renaming process until the 403 Forbidden disappears.
4. Delete the last renamed directory with the plugin files by right-clicking on it and selecting Delete.
5. Revert to the original plugin directory names by removing the -stop prefix.

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