301 redirect exclusion not working

[mfarah01]

Hi

I've moving my site one from one URL to another. My htaccess looks something like this

RewriteEngine on
Redirect 301 /ntour.jsp [oldsite.com...]
Redirect 301 /vtourr.jsp [oldsite.com...]
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/m/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ [newsite.com...] [R=301,QSA,L]

As you can see I have some 301 redirects before the main one, this was due to some previous changes. I'm now trying to redirect everything but files and folder in the /m/ directory.

The redirect works BUT the /m/ folder is not excluded. Please help.

[g1smd]

Use RewriteRule (instead of Redirect) for all of the rules to be sure of the order they are processed in.

Add the [L] flag to all of the redirects.

I would replace !/m/ with !^/m/ here.

[edited by: g1smd at 8:02 pm (utc) on Mar 11, 2010]

[mfarah01]

Thanks.So it's only this part I need to change?

Redirect 301 /ntour.jsp [oldsite.com...]
Redirect 301 /vtourr.jsp [oldsite.com...]

[mfarah01]

Could you please give me an example, I dont know much about rewrite rules

[g1smd]

There's more than 10 000 prior examples in this forum, as well as the resources cited in the forum charter.

You've already used a RewriteRule with [R=301,L]. The new code is going to be very similar, but redirecting for specific URL requests not the .* 'all' pattern.

[mfarah01]

I edited the code as follows

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/m/(/?$|/.*$)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ [newdomain.com...] [R=301,QSA,L]

Now when I type in www.olddomain.com/m/ the redirect is excluded. However as soon as I click on any link in the /m/ folder to another file in the /m/ folder, I get a 404 since it's trying to open the page on the new domain.

[mfarah01]

OK I think I have it, I changed it as follows;

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/m/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ [newdomain.com...] [R=301,QSA,L]

Basically removing everything after /m/ and this works now.

[g1smd]

That's looking good.

[mfarah01]

Thanks, also changed all the redirect rules to rewrite as suggested

[g1smd]

Let's see the final code as there may be other things that can be optimised...

[mfarah01]

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^ntour\.jsp$ [olddomain.com...] [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^members\.jsp$ [m.olddomain.com...] [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^vtourr\.jsp$ [olddomain.com...] [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^vtour\.jsp$ [olddomain.com...] [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^ptourr\.jsp$ [olddomain.com...] [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^ptour\.jsp$ [olddomain.com...] [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^freeImg\.jsp$ [olddomain.com...] [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^freeVid\.jsp$ [olddomain.com...] [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^testfree\.jsp$ [olddomain.com...] [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^freejoin\.jsp$ [olddomain.com...] [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^daily-delivery\.php$ [olddomain.com...] [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^daily-video\.php$ [olddomain.com...]
RewriteRule ^daily-image\.php$ [olddomain.com...] [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/m/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ [newdomain.com...] [R=301,QSA,L]

[g1smd]

You can combine rules for vtour and vtourr by using

vtourr?

making the final r optional.

You can combine multiple rules like freeVid and testfree by using a local OR construct like

(freeVid|testfree)

here.

Use both together for your actual rule and you can better than halve the number of rules.

The (freeVid|testfree) could also be done as ((test)?free(Vid)?) too, but that's not necessary.

[edited by: g1smd at 11:49 am (utc) on Mar 15, 2010]

[g1smd]

Use example.com to stop the forum busting your code.

[mfarah01]

Thanks, so would that look like this;

RewriteRule ^(freeVid|testfree)\.jsp$ http://www.example.com/m/daily-video.php [R=301,L]

[g1smd]

Yes, and you can combine a lot more into that rule.

I kept the examples simple.

[mfarah01]

OK so I've re-written as follows

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^members\.jsp$ [m.example.com...] [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^(freeVid|testfree|ntour|vtourr|freejoin|testfree)\.jsp$ http://www.example.com/m/daily-video.php [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^(freeImg|ptour|ptourr)\.jsp$ http://www.example.com/m/daily-image.php [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^(daily-video|daily-delivery)\.php$ http://www.example.com/m/daily-video.php [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^daily-image\.php$ http://www.example.com/m/daily-image.php [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/m/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,QSA,L]

Whilst doing this, i realised that there was another sub folder on the old domain /sms/ that needs to be forwarded to a different domain [m.olddomain.com...]

Should I also use a rewrite here and can you advise on how to do this for a folder?

[g1smd]

The entry "testfree" appears twice.

You forgot to add a ? to

vtourr

so that it will also match

vtour

as well. Attention to every detail is very important!

The

ptour

and

ptourr

can be combined as

ptourr?

here.

You can further combine

(daily-video|daily-delivery)

into

daily-(video|delivery)

too.

For a folder, you'll need to 'catch' the variable part of the URLs in a backreference and reuse that for the target.

[mfarah01]

Cool I think this should be right now. Please can you give me a bit more guidance on 'catching' the back reference?

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^members\.jsp$ [m.example.com...] [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^(freeVid|testfree|ntour|vtourr?|freejoin)\.jsp$ http://www.example.com/m/daily-video.php [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^(freeImg|ptourr?)\.jsp$ http://www.example.com/m/daily-image.php [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^(daily-(video|daily-delivery)\.php$ http://www.example.com/m/daily-video.php [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^daily-image\.php$ http://www.example.com/m/daily-image.php [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/m/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,QSA,L]

[g1smd]

There's one in your ruleset. It's the ( ) and $1 parts.


I wondered if having told you about combining the "daily-" URLs whether you'd spot the same opportunity with freeVid and freejoin too? :)

The "daily-" rule has unmatched parentheses and will match only daily-video and daily-daily-delivery. Details!

[mfarah01]

LOL, ok I see what you mean, here is the revised code with my attempt at the variable catch for the folder

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/sms/(.*) [m.example.com...] [R=301,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^members\.jsp$ [m.example.com...] [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^(free-(Vid|join)|testfree|ntour|vtourr?)\.jsp$ http://www.example.com/m/daily-video.php [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^(freeImg|ptourr?)\.jsp$ http://www.example.com/m/daily-image.php [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^(daily-(video|daily-delivery))\.php$ http://www.example.com/m/daily-video.php [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^daily-image\.php$ http://www.example.com/m/daily-image.php [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/m/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,QSA,L]

[g1smd]

Still matching daily-daily-delivery. :)

[mfarah01]

I "think" I'm there now :)

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/sms/(.*) [m.example.com...] [R=301,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^members\.jsp$ [m.example.com...] [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^(free(Vid|join)|testfree|ntour|vtourr?)\.jsp$ http://www.example.com/m/daily-video.php [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^(freeImg|ptourr?)\.jsp$ http://www.example.com/m/daily-image.php [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^(daily-(video|delivery))\.php$ http://www.example.com/m/daily-video.php [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^daily-image\.php$ http://www.example.com/m/daily-image.php [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/m/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,QSA,L]

Is my /sms/ rule ok?

[jdMorgan]

Remove the leading slash from the "^/sms/(.*)$" pattern.

Jim

[mfarah01]

Thanks, so it would look like this?

RewriteRule ^sms/(.*) [m.example.com...] [R=301,QSA,L]

[g1smd]

With http:// in place of the [ yes.

[mfarah01]

Yes, tested and all working. Thanks very much to both of you for your help. I've learnt a lot!

[jdMorgan]

You really don't need "[QSA]" on most (or all) of your rules. [QSA] is only needed if you wish to retain the requested query string *and* append one or more new parameters to it. Any other use is simply a waste of CPU time.

Jim