Using Multisite WordPress (3.3.2) on IIS7 with the standard URL Rewrite rules causes issues

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Asked: June 6, 20262026-06-06T00:42:23+00:00 2026-06-06T00:42:23+00:00

Using Multisite WordPress (3.3.2) on IIS7 with the standard URL Rewrite rules causes issues

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Using Multisite WordPress (3.3.2) on IIS7 with the standard URL Rewrite rules causes issues with trailing slashes and the pagination links

For example, if you visit a multisite blog with a URL like this: http://mydomain.com/bloga (without trailing slash) the ‘Older Entries’ link becomes http://mydomain.com/bloga/bloga/page/2/ — it doubles up the blog slug in the URL causing a 404 error. Additionally any previous page link 1 2 3 4 5 etc have bad URL’s as well.

If you visit http://mydomain.com/bloga/ (with trailing slash) the ‘Older Entries’ link is correctly http://mydomain.com/bloga/page/2/

I have found the issue to be present across multiple servers, with fresh, theme-less and plugin-less installations of WordPress

The standard URL Rewrite rules are as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <rewrite>
            <rules>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 1" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="^index\.php$" ignoreCase="false" />
                    <action type="None" />
                </rule>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 2" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?files/(.+)" ignoreCase="false" />
                    <action type="Rewrite" url="wp-includes/ms-files.php?file={R:2}" appendQueryString="false" />
                </rule>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 3" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?wp-admin$" ignoreCase="false" />
                    <action type="Redirect" url="{R:1}wp-admin/" redirectType="Permanent" />
                </rule>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 4" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="^" ignoreCase="false" />
                    <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAny">
                        <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" ignoreCase="false" />
                        <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" ignoreCase="false" />
                    </conditions>
                    <action type="None" />
                </rule>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 5" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="^[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/(wp-(content|admin|includes).*)" ignoreCase="false" />
                    <action type="Rewrite" url="{R:1}" />
                </rule>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 6" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(.*\.php)$" ignoreCase="false" />
                    <action type="Rewrite" url="{R:2}" />
                </rule>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 7" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="." ignoreCase="false" />
                    <action type="Rewrite" url="index.php" />
                </rule>
            </rules>
        </rewrite>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

Has anyone seen this problem or know of a solution? Thank you