Help with Redirect Rules

[ivanvias]

Hi,

I want to create a redirect in htaccess for urls that are like this:

[example.com...] or [example.com...]

To redirect to [firstnamelastname.example.com...]

[lucy24]

That sounds like a good plan. What have you tried so far and what are the results?

What, if any, is the significance of the mv= parameter? If you remove it from the URL, its information will no longer be available to the page.

Incidentally there's a parallel thread asking this identical question [webmasterworld.com]. In fact, the thread creator's name is remarkably similar to yours.

[ivanvias]

Yes I want to redirect both instances.

[ivanvias]

I tried this:


RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ [$1.example.com...] [L,R=301]
RedirectMatch 301 ^([a-z0-9\-]+)/(.*)$ [example.com...]


But then when i go to main page it puts the [.example.com...]

[phranque]

RedirectMatch is a mod_alias directive.
you want to try using a mod_rewrite directive instead.

(they don't play well together.)

[penders]

As lucy24 asked, is the mv= parameter important in identifying the redirect? It's just that you make no reference to this at all in your example code?

[ivanvias]

yes the mv can be 1 to 4 . So the rule should redirect all [example.com...] and eg [example.com...] to [firstnamelastname.example.com...]

[lucy24]

If you are simply throwing away the mv= parameter, and there are no other parameters to look out for, then you don't need to say anything about it at all. Just make sure the target ends in ? to get rid of the query string.

I still don't understand why this question is in a new thread. We're still talking about
firstnamelastname.example.com
subdomains, right?

[ivanvias]

Any experts out there to lend a hand?

[ivanvias]

I tried this:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?example\.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^mv=[0-4]$
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9]+)$ [$1.example.com...] [L,R]


But this doesnt work for the [example.com...]

It only does [example.com...]

Can anyone else help

[phranque]

are you saying that the query string is optional for this ruleset?

[ivanvias]

Primarily i want to redirect [example.com...] and then I also want to redirect [example.com...] etc

[lucy24]

Yes, but do you want to redirect to the same URL-- meaning that the query string is irrelevant-- or do you want to redirect to a different URL, either by preserving the query string or by putting its information into the path?

<tangent>
I got curious and did a bit of research. ivanvias, you've been asking close variants on the same question since 2009. In that time, questions have been answered by-- among others-- g1smd and jdMorgan. This suggests that your criterion for "expert" is unduly stringent.
</tangent>

[penders]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?example\.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^mv=[0-4]$
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9]+)$ [$1.example.com...] [L,R]

But this doesnt work for the [example.com...]

What if you simply remove the QUERY_STRING line from the above ruleset? This should then redirect "https://example.com/firstnamelastname", as well as "https://example.com/firstnamelastname?mv=0", "https://example.com/firstnamelastname?mv=1", etc. (?)

[ivanvias]

I have these rules on my site:

#################BEGIN RULES ON LIVE SITE
# Externally redirect direct client requests for subdomain-subdirectory URLs which
# resolve to existing subdirectories back to canonical subdomain root URLs
RewriteCond $1 !^(support|about-us|profile|support|features|videos|terms-of-service|about-us|signup|media|includes|modules|cgi-bin|templates|xmlrpc|language|libraries|plugins|administrator|component|images|dev|data)
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]+\ /([a-z0-9\-]+)/[^\ ]*\ HTTP/
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/$1 -d
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9\-]+)/(.*)$ [$1.example.com...] [R=301,L]

#
# Externally redirect requests for /features, /about-us, /signup, /images in subdomains to main domain
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^([a-z0-9\-]+)\.example\.com
RewriteCond %1 !^www\.
RewriteRule ^(support|about-us|profile|support|features|newserver|videos|about-us|terms-of-service|signup|component|includes|media|cgi-bin|templates|xmlrpc|language|modules|libraries|plugins|administrator|images(/.*))$ [example.com...] [R=301,L]
#
# Externally redirect all www hostnames to non-www hostnames
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(([a-z0-9\-]+\.)*)www\.(([a-z0-9\-]+\.)*)example\.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ [%1%3example.com...] [R=301,L]
#


I added these below to redirect these types: [example.com...] etc



RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?example\.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^mv=[0-4]$
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9]+)$ [$1.example.com...] [L,R]


However I cannot get these to redirect [example.com...]



If i remove the Query string from the last 3 lines then If i would click on features link on my website It would redirect to [features.example.com...] which is what the rules at the top are preventing.


Can anyone assist with this.

[lucy24]

However I cannot get these to redirect [example.com...]
Is that the entire requested URL? No trailing slash, no other content?

Also: does "these" mean the rule quoted immediately above, or does it mean all rules? The last listed rule-- the one that's currently missing the "=301" part-- needs to come before the www. redirect.

The whole mv=[0-4] business is a red herring. By default, any redirect will quietly reappend the query string, if any, without changing it. If instead you want all query strings to go away, simply add
?
to the end of the target. There is no need for a separate rule.

[ivanvias]

Hi,


As is right now the last 3 rules are there to redirect urls that are [example.com...] to 4 Which is working. However I am still getting 404 errors on [example.com...] no trailing slash nor content.

[not2easy]

The last three rules are fine except that they are in the incorrect order to work correctly, and you took off the 301 from the last rule. (which means a temporary 302 is what you would have if it could work.) Try the correction and then see what you have.

[lucy24]

the last 3 rules are there to redirect urls that are
[example.com...] to 4
Which is working. However I am still getting 404 errors on
[example.com...]
no trailing slash

These are the same redirect and should be the same rule.

Is there some other parameter-- besides mv --that you need to preserve? Otherwise I don't understand why there would be two separate rules.

An URL with no extension and no trailing slash will always lead to a 404 unless you have a rewrite pointing to the place where the content actually lives. Possible exception: if there is a physical file at
example.com/firstnamelastname.xtn
AND MultiViews is active. CMS code also counts as a rewrite. But here we're talking about something that you already know doesn't represent a physical file. Is
example.com/firstnamelastname
supposed to redirect to
firstnamelastname.example.com/
?
What is supposed to happen after that? (There has to be an "after that" because the form
firstnamelastname.example.com
cannot represent a physical location. Servers don't have that many dimensions.)

[penders]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?example\.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^mv=[0-4]$
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9]+)$ [$1.example.com...] [L,R]

However I cannot get these to redirect [example.com...]

If i remove the Query string from the last 3 lines then If i would click on features link on my website It would redirect to [features.example.com...] which is what the rules at the top are preventing.

Then maybe you need to use the same rule...? For example:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?example\.com$ [NC]  
RewriteCond $1 !^features$ 
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9]+)$ [$1.example.com...]  [L,R]