Change Pagination Default to “/2/” Query String “?page=2”

Question

In WordPress, the default pagination structure is set to “/2/”, “/3/”, “/4/” and so on. However, it’s possible to change this to a query string like “?page=2”, “?page=3”, “?page=4” and so on by modifying the permalink structure. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to achieve this:

Change permalink structure: The first step is to change the permalink structure in WordPress to use query strings instead of the default pagination structure. You can do this by going to the WordPress dashboard, then Settings > Permalinks, and selecting the “Plain” option. This will change the permalink structure to use query strings for pagination.
Modify the pagination code: Next, you’ll need to modify the pagination code in your WordPress theme to use query strings instead of the default pagination structure. Here’s an example of how to do this:

function modify_pagination_links($links) {
    $links = preg_replace('/\/(\d+)\//', '?page=$1', $links);
    return $links;
}
add_filter('paginate_links', 'modify_pagination_links');

In this example, we’re using the paginate_links filter to modify the pagination links. The preg_replace function is used to replace the default pagination structure of “/number/” with a query string of “?page=number”. The $1 in the replace string is a backreference to the first matched group in the regular expression, which is the number in the pagination structure.

Test the pagination: Finally, you can test the pagination on your website to see if the links have been updated to use query strings. For example, the pagination links in the home page should now be https://www.domain.com/?page=2, the pagination links in the taxonomy should be https://www.domain.com/tag/news/?page=2, and the pagination links in a post should be https://www.domain.com/post/?page=2.
This code will modify the pagination links on your website to use query strings instead of the default pagination structure for all types of pages, including the home page, posts, categories, taxonomies, and custom post types.

In conclusion, by modifying the permalink structure and the pagination code, you can change the pagination links in WordPress to use query strings for all types of pages, including the home page, posts, categories, taxonomies, and custom post types.

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