Rewrite Question

301 to a new URL handling query strings

[SEOMike]

A client is changing URLs and redesigning their site. Their current site has awful query strings which dynamically build every page. (ie. index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=XX&Itemid=YY) Redirecting these pages will be a pain, but I can handle that.

My real question is how do I redirect index.php (the main page of the site with inbound links) to index.htm while ignoring index.php with a query string attached? My limited understanding of this has me thinking that anytime the redirect sees index.php in any form (with or without the query string) it'll redirect to index.php's target (the new homepage).

I'm worried it'll work like this:

301 redirect index.php -> index.htm

301 redirect index.php?awful_QS -> index.htm


I need it to work like this:

301 redirect index.php -> index.htm

301 redirect index.php?awful_QS -> matching_new_page.htm

[g1smd]

This code will trigger for a blank query string:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !.

and goes before the

RewriteRule

that performs the redirect.

However, I would caution against redirecting to a named index page.

You should instead redirect to

www.example.com/

with a trailing slash. Your redirect should look something like this:

RewriteRule ^index\.(php|html?) http://www.example.com/ [R=301,L]

Use this code to serve the index.html file when the "/" URL is requested:

DirectoryIndex index.htm

[SEOMike]

Great. Thanks!