Error 404 Not Found on the site running on Joomla means that the requested page can not be found. Visitors often get to it from search engines, outdated links, or even from the menu of the site itself. The reasons can range from a deleted article to routing issues.
In this article, we will explain why error 404 appears in Joomla and how to quickly eliminate it.
The .htaccess file is a configuration file used on Apache web servers to manage website settings without access to the server’s main configuration. With it, you can enable redirects, restrict access, configure SEO-friendly URLs, set up caching, and much more—directly from the root of your site or any of its directories.
Many CMSs automatically create this file on installation or include a sample in the distribution.
If you're working with hosting, especially on Apache, it's important to know what the default .htaccess looks like for different CMSs. This helps you:
Check that everything is correct after installation;
Restore the file if it was accidentally deleted;
Understand what rules the system uses “out of the box”.