[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #56359: Non-existent URLs show contents of homepage instead of 404 error

[WordPress Trac]

#56359: Non-existent URLs show contents of homepage instead of 404 error
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 Reporter:  softrain      |       Owner:  (none)
     Type:  defect (bug)  |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal        |   Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Permalinks    |     Version:  6.0
 Severity:  normal        |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  2nd-opinion   |     Focuses:
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Changes (by ironprogrammer):

 * keywords:   => 2nd-opinion


Comment:

 Welcome to Trac, @softrain, and thank you for your report!

 I'm able to reproduce this, and note that this isn't ideal for SEO (every
 "fake" URL becomes an indexible resource, and might be subject to SEO spam
 and de-ranking "attacks"). But I'm unsure whether this is working as
 designed, as odd as that may seem.

 For context, [https://wordpress.org/support/article/using-permalinks
 /#plain-permalinks the permalinks "Plain" setting is not SEO optimized],
 and may allude to situations like this. I've always used the other
 permalink structures, so don't know how long this behavior has been around
 😅

 Adding `2nd-opinion` and CCing @SergeyBiryukov to hopefully get additional
 input.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/56359#comment:1>
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