How Do I Redirect My Site Using A .htaccess File?

How To Redirect A Website Using A .htaccess File

OVERVIEW

This document will explain how to create a .htaccess file to redirect your site or site content.
This will not redirect any emails for your domains.

READ ME FIRST

As a configuration file, .htaccess is very powerful.
Even the slightest syntax error (like a missing space) can result in your content not displaying correctly or at all.

Since .htaccess is a hidden system file, please make sure your FTP client is configured to show hidden files.
This is usually an option in the program's preferences/options.

This article is provided as a courtesy.

Installing, configuring, and troubleshooting third-party applications is outside the scope of basic support provided by Starburst Services.

INSTRUCTIONS

• 1. Create an empty text file using a text editor such as Notepad++, and save it as htaccess.txt.

NOTE:

The reason you should save the file as htaccess.txt is because many operating systems and FTP applications are unable to read or view .htaccess files by default.
Once uploaded to the server you can rename the file to .htaccess.

• 2. Edit the contents of the htaccess.txt file.

301 (Permanent) Redirect:

Use a 301 redirect .htaccess to point an entire site to a different URL on a permanent basis.
This is the most common type of redirect and is useful in most situations.
In this example, we are redirecting to the "example.com" domain.

When adding the following to your website's .htaccess file, be sure to replace example.com with your own domain name.

# This allows you to redirect your entire website to any other domain

Redirect 301 / http://example.com/

302 (Temporary) Redirect:

Point an entire site to a different temporary URL.
This is useful for SEO purposes when you have a temporary landing page and plan to switch back to your main landing page at a later date:

# This allows you to redirect your entire website to any other domain

Redirect 302 / http://example.com/

Redirect index.html to a specific subfolder:

# This allows you to redirect index.html to a specific subfolder

Redirect /index.html http://example.com/newdirectory/

Redirect an old directory to a new directory:

# Redirects example.com/old to example.com/new

RewriteRule ^old/(.*)$ /new/$1 [R=301,NC,L]

Redirect an old file to a new file path:

# Redirect old file path to new file path

Redirect /olddirectory/oldfile.html http://example.com/newdirectory/newfile.html

Redirect to a subfolder with URL masking:

# Show the content in example.com/folder2, but the URL appears as example.com/folder1

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^folder1/?$ /folder2/

# To show the URL as just example.com

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/?$ /folder2/
Redirect to a specific index page:

# Provide Specific Index Page (Set the default handler)

DirectoryIndex index.html

Redirect an error message.
Instead of prompting a 404 Not Found error page, the site will redirect to the homepage:

# Redirect 404 Error pages to the home page

ErrorDocument 404 http://example.com/

Redirect a non-existing page to index.php:

# Redirect non-existing pages to index.php

Options +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

• 3. Upload this file and re-name it to .htaccess

NOTE:

• If using a text editor, be sure to save the file as plain text.
• Paths to where you should save this file can be found in this article: System paths.
• The definitive guide on Apache directives that can be used in .htaccess files can be found here: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/core.html

MORE POWERFUL URL CHANGES WITH MOD_REWRITE

If you need to make complex changes to the way your URL displays, you should visit Using .htaccess rewrite rules.
You can do things like add "www" to the beginning of your URL, redirect all requests to a subfolder but keep the rest of the URL, etc.

KB Article Created: 2023-12-14
KB Article Updated: 2024-01-20

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