diff --git a/.bazelignore b/.bazelignore
index 201f851370..5c3a81cce9 100644
--- a/.bazelignore
+++ b/.bazelignore
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
 # These are fetched as external repositories.
 third_party/benchmark
 third_party/googletest
+_build/
diff --git a/php/generate_test_protos.sh b/php/generate_test_protos.sh
index 424b50f42b..8607499c8e 100755
--- a/php/generate_test_protos.sh
+++ b/php/generate_test_protos.sh
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ else
   # Bazel seems to be creating a problematic symlink in
   # _build/out/external/com_google_protobuf, so we remove the _build directory
   # before building protoc.
-  (cd .. && rm -rf _build && bazel build -c opt :protoc)
+  (cd .. && bazel build -c opt :protoc)
   PROTOC=bazel-bin/protoc
 fi