Rewrite Rule for directory content being moved to two places

ecommerce website

[leon_di]

Hi All

I've been reading the forum with interest with regards to rewrite rules but didn't come across anything that covered my scenario so I help someone can help.

We're currently restructuring our ecommerce website and as a result two things are happening:

example.com/folder1/subfolder1 is moving to example/folder2/subfolder1

This is correct for category and subcategory pages but not product pages as below:

example.com/folder1/product1.html is moving to example.com/product1.html

Will the following work:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} example.com/folder1/$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !subfolder1 [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !subfolder2 [OR]
RewriteRule ^folder1/(.*)$ /$1 [R=301,NC,L]
RewriteRule ^folder1/(.*)$ /folder2/$1 [R=301,NC,L]


or will I need to replace the last rule with:

RewriteRule ^folder1/subfolder1/(.*)$ /folder2/subfolder1/$1 [R=301,NC,L]

Thanks in advance for your help!

[leon_di]

RewriteRule ^folder/(subdir1|subdir2|subdir2/subsubdir)$ - [G]

Sorry Lucy, that should have been RewriteRule ^folder/(subdir1|subdir2|subdir3/subsubdir)$ - [G]

Therefore it should be?:

^folder/(subdir1|subdir2|subdir3(/subsubdir)?)(/(index\.html)?)?$

[leon_di]

Hi Lucy

This is what I have so far. Would you mind taking a look and seeing if it makes sense?

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

Options +FollowSymlinks

#### activate rewrite engine ####

RewriteEngine on

#### we are in the root ####

Rewritebase /

#### BBQ section ####

#### 410 removed categories - categories being deleted completely - letters c - s represent actual folder names within bbq/the-bbq/ ####

RewriteRule ^bbq/the-bbq/(new-the-for-2014|c|f|g|m|o|p|q|r|s)(/(index\.html)?)?$ - G

#### Category pages - bbq/the-bbq being moved to /the-bbq & others being moved to subfolders of /the-bbq/ ####

RewriteRule ^bbq/the-bbq\.html example.com/the-bbq.html [R=301,L]

RewriteRule ^bbq/(the-gas-bbq|the-charcoal-bbq|the-q-bbq|the-smokey-mountain|the-accessories)\.html example.com/the-bbq/$1.html [R=301,L] 

#### Real subdirectories - being moved to subdirectories of /the-bbq/####

RewriteRule ^bbq/([^./]+)(/index\.html)?$ http://example.com/the-bbq/$1/ [R=301,L]

#### Product and info pages - being moved to the root / ####

RewriteRule ^bbq/([^/]+)$ http://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

#### All remaining material i.e. stuff in subfolders being moved to subfolders of /the-bbq ####

RewriteRule ^bbq/(.*) http://example.com/the-bbq/$1 [R=301,L]

#### Shop section ####
#### 410 removed categories - categories being deleted completely ####

RewriteRule ^shop/(covers|caravan-and-camping|garden-furniture(/leisure-garden-furniture)?)(/(index\.html)?)?$ - [G]

#### Category pages - being moved to 2 different places ####

RewriteRule ^shop/(garden-furniture|garden-ornaments)\.html example.com/$1/$2.html [R=301,L]

RewriteRule ^shop/outside-lighting\.html example.com/garden-furniture/outside-lighting/$1.html [R=301,L]

#### Real subdirectories - being moved to 2 different places ####

RewriteRule ^shop/(garden-furniture|garden-ornaments)$([^./]+)(/index\.html)?$ http://example.com/$1/$2/ [R=301,L]

RewriteRule ^shop/outside-lighting$([^./]+)(/index\.html)?$ http://example.com/garden-furniture/outside-lighting/$1/ [R=301,L]

#### Product and info pages - being moved to the root / ####

RewriteRule ^shop/([^/]+)$ http://example.com/$1 [R=301,L] 

#### All remaining material i.e. stuff in subfolders - being moved to 2 different places ####

RewriteRule ^shop/(garden-furniture|garden-ornaments)/(.*) http://example.com/$1/$2 [R=301,L] 

RewriteRule ^shop/outside-lighting/(.*) http://example.com/garden-furniture/outside-lighting/$1 [R=301,L]

#### Artificial Plants section ####

#### 410 removed categories - categories being deleted completely ####

RewriteRule ^artificial_plants/new-for-2014(/(index\.html)?)?$ - [G]

#### Category pages - moving from /artificial_plants/ to /artificial-plants/ ####

RewriteRule ^artificial_plants/(flowering-artificial-plants|artificial-orchids|artificial-hanging-baskets|foliage-artificial-plants|artificial-trees|artificial-topiary|pot-and-planters)\.html example.com/artificial-plants/$1.html [R=301,L]

#### Real subdirectories - moving from /artificial_plants/ to /artificial-plants/ ####

RewriteRule ^artificial_plants/([^./]+)(/index\.html)?$ http://example.com/artificial-plants/$1/ [R=301,L]

#### Product and info pages - moving to the root / ####

RewriteRule ^artificial_plants/([^/]+)$ http://example.com/$1 [R=301,L] 

#### All remaining material i.e. stuff in subfolders - moving from /artificial_plants/ to /artificial-plants/ ####

RewriteRule ^artificial_plants/(.*) http://example.com/artificial-plants/$1 [R=301,L]

#### Homeware section - being deleted completely ####

RewriteRule ^homeware - [G]

</IfModule>

[leon_di]

The final issue I need to resolve (hopefully)

In /homeware all the products are being deleted hence the 410. However, due to the way magento works, all those products also exist in the other stores as duplicates. Therefore:

/homeware/produc1.html
/shop/product1.html
/bbq/product1.html
/artificial_plants/product1.html

pages exist for the same product.

Is there a way to copy the product url from the /homeware store and create a 410 for all of them?

[lucy24]

Whew.

Shortest question first:

Is there a way to copy the product url from the /homeware store and create a 410 for all of them?

You mean something like
"if homeware/productname.html is a real, physical file, then return a [G] for anything in the form (homeware|shop|bbq|artificial_plants)/productname.html"
?
Yikes. I assume there are too many different productnames to list them individually? I did some experimenting with the -f lookup but couldn't get it to work. The problem seems to be that %{REQUEST_URI} and %{REQUEST_FILENAME} (on my server using htaccess, only the latter works) both involve complete paths, and you can't use captures on the "TestString" (left) side, so you can't say anything like

homeware/%{REQUEST_URI}

or

homeware/$1

So you'd have to detour to a php script where you've got more flexibility in chopping apart requests. (Don't look at me. I only speak three words of php. But there's a subforum.)

Will there be other URLs in any of these four directories that are not going away? afaik it's perfectly harmless to return a 410 [G] for an URL that never existed in the first place. But I do note that one of the four possibilities is /bbq/ which figures prominently in your later rules.

---

Now then:

:: pause to paste whole htaccess into SubEthaEdit and switch to "Apache" formatting ::

(the-gas-bbq|the-charcoal-bbq|the-q-bbq)

If those are your real directory names, it can be collapsed to

the-(gas|charcoal|q)-bbq

or even

the-\w+-bbq

or even

the-[^./]+

if you are moving everything that started out as /bbq/the-something:

RewriteRule ^bbq/(the-[^./]+\.html) http://example.com/the-bbq/$1 [R=301,L]

Coincidentally this lets you include .html in the capture, but I just did it here-- and a few other places-- to make the text look cleaner. You may prefer to keep .html out of the capture so your targets consistently end in explicit ".html". Your choice.

In this rule

#### Real subdirectories - being moved to subdirectories of /the-bbq/####
RewriteRule ^bbq/([^./]+)(/index\.html)?$ http://example.com/the-bbq/$1/ [R=301,L]

what happened to conventionally formatted directory requests ending in / slash? Seems like it ought to be

^bbq/([^./]+)(/(index\.html)?)?$

to cover all three possibilities.

RewriteRule ^shop/(garden-furniture|garden-ornaments)\.html example.com/$1/$2.html [R=301,L]

Whoops! Something went wrong in copy-and-paste here, since only one thing is being captured. There's also some repetition again. I think it's supposed to be

RewriteRule ^shop/garden-(furniture|ornaments)\.html http://example.com/garden-$1.html [R=301,L]

You can do the same thing a few other places when you're looking at /shop/garden-blahblah subdirectories. Again, watch out for the $1/$2 blunder.

Several rules are missing http:// in the target. Cut-and-paste error?

Mistake in both of these:

#### Real subdirectories - being moved to 2 different places ####
RewriteRule ^shop/(garden-furniture|garden-ornaments)$([^./]+)(/index\.html)?$ http://example.com/$1/$2/ [R=301,L]

RewriteRule ^shop/outside-lighting$([^./]+)(/index\.html)?$ http://example.com/garden-furniture/outside-lighting/$1/ [R=301,L]

Is the $ in the middle of each pattern simply a typo for / slash?

#### Category pages - moving from /artificial_plants/ to /artificial-plants/ ####
RewriteRule ^artificial_plants/(flowering-artificial-plants|artificial-orchids|artificial-hanging-baskets|foliage-artificial-plants|artificial-trees|artificial-topiary|pot-and-planters)\.html example.com/artificial-plants/$1.html [R=301,L]

If the entire content of /artificial_plants/ is moving to /artificial-plants/ you don't need to spell out the filenames.

RewriteRule ^artificial_plants/([^./]+\.html) example.com/artificial-plants/$1 [R=301,L]

or

RewriteRule ^artificial_plants/([^./]+)\.html example.com/artificial-plants/$1.html [R=301,L]

(Your choice.)

---

I think that's everything. It looks as if you'll end up with three almost-identical groups of rules: one for /bbq/ one for /shop/ and one for /artificicial_plants/

[leon_di]

Yikes. I assume there are too many different productnames to list them individually?

Thousands!

(Don't look at me. I only speak three words of php. But there's a subforum.)

I'm sure it's more than 3 words, but thanks! Wonder if the cms can achieve this somehow.

Will there be other URLs in any of these four directories that are not going away?

Yes, hundreds.

---

if you are moving everything that started out as /bbq/the-something:

Despite bbq/the-bbq moving to /the-bbq compared to everything else being moved into a subdirectory bbq/the-bbq/the-gas-bbq etc etc?

Or does the specific rule

RewriteRule ^bbq/the-bbq\.html example.com/the-bbq.html [R=301,L]

above this allow it to work?

Cut-and-paste error?

Yes, looks like there are many, I'll have to double check these, thanks!

Is the $ in the middle of each pattern simply a typo for / slash?

Hmmm, wonder how that changed. Will go back and check it.

If the entire content of /artificial_plants/ is moving to /artificial-plants/ you don't need to spell out the filenames.

Unfortunately, one subfolder is not moving and is being removed. Specifically /new-for-2014. However, since I've got a rule for that above the rule for the others, does it allow me to use your suggestion?

I think that's everything. It looks as if you'll end up with three almost-identical groups of rules: one for /bbq/ one for /shop/ and one for /artificicial_plants/

Yes and thousands of 404s unless I figure out what to do with the products being removed. You've been a massive help with this. Thanks!