Mod_Rewrite – specifies how web pages and URLs are displayed to the visitors.
We would like to draw your attention to the usage of Mod_Rewrite rules in .htaccess file.
Before creating a redirect, you should choose the redirection type which would be more preferable for you:
Permanent redirect has a status code of 301, and unlike the temporary one, it is cached in the browser memory. It implies that the page has been moved and requests all search engines and user agent coming to the page to update the URL in their database. This is the most common type of redirect.
Temporary redirect means that the page is sending status code 302 to the browser. Code 302 tells the browser not to cache this redirect into its saved data. It will redirect the visitor or search engine, but the search engine will continue to index to the original page. This is the recommended type of redirect, unless you are absolutely sure that you will never change it in the future.
The list of the most common and useful redirects, which can be set through the .htaccess file, can be found below (the domains specified in the examples should be replaced with your own ones):
Permanent redirect from example.com to domain.com
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ "http\:\/\/domain\.com/$1" [R=301,L]
Temporary redirect from example.com to domain.com
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ "http\:\/\/domain\.com\/" [R=302,L]
NOTE: Below are the examples of permanent redirects. Temporary one can be defined by replacing [R=301,L] with [R=302,L] in the end of the code (where necessary).
Redirect from example.com/subfolder to domain.com
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$
RewriteRule ^subfolder$ "http\:\/\/domain\.com\/" [R=301,L]
Redirect from HTTP to HTTPS
for a certain domain, example.com: RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule .* https://example.com/%{REQUEST_URI} [R,L]
or RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R,L]
Redirect from non-WWW to WWW
for any domain .htaccess takes effect on:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]
for a certain domain, example.com:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]
Redirect from WWW to non-WWW
for any domain .htaccess takes effect on:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]
for a certain domain, example.com:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]
Changes the directory root for the main domain to public_html/subfolder
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?example.com$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/subfolder/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /subfolder/$1
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?example.com$
RewriteRule ^(/)?$ subfolder/index.php [L]
NOTE: The .htaccess file should be located in the directory root of the domain you wish to configure certain rules for.
Disabling existing .htaccess rules
If you need to disable some of the existing rules, for example, for testing purposes, you can simply comment them out. In order to do so, add the pound sign # at the beginning of each line of the rule.
