Query String Redirect... How Do I Do It?

[Billy Batson]

Over on the Bourbon Update thread Justin was telling me how to 301 a link to the index of mydomain with a long obsolete parameter call on it:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mydomain\.com\?[parameter] [NC]

You will need to use %{QUERY_STRING}. I would elaborate, but this is an update thread. =)

If you are stuck, please post in the Apache forum.

I'm stuck... how do I do this redirect, please?

Thanks!

[Billy Batson]

Actually, I think I have solved the issue:

Options +FollowSymLinks 
RewriteCond %{query_string} ^aaaa=bbbb.htm 
RewriteRule index\.htm$ http://www.example.com/? [R=301,L]

Or is this going to break and make Google angry somehow?

[edited by: jdMorgan at 3:50 pm (utc) on June 10, 2005]
[edit reason] Examplified. [/edit]

[jdMorgan]

It's OK, as long as you're aware that it will redirect index.html in any (sub)directory to your home page.

Since you didn't state what you're trying to accomplish or give background information on your current site structure, I can't say if it will hurt your rankings in Google.

You can make it more specific by start-anchoring the URL pattern. Further, you should escape all literal characters, including those in the query string:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^aaaa=bbbb\.htm
RewriteRule ^index\.htm$ http://www.example.com/? [R=301,L]

That will redirect requests for www.example.com/index.html?aaaa=bbb\.htm to www.example.com/

Jim