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    4. Redirecting index.html to the root

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    Redirecting index.html to the root

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
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    • romanbond
      romanbond last edited by

      Hi, I was wondering if there is a safe way to consolidate link juice on a single version of a home page. I find incoming links to my site that link to both mysite.com/ and mysite.com/index.html. I've decided to go with mysite.com/ as my main and only URL for the site and now I'd like to transfer all link juice from mysite.com/index.html to mysite.com/
      When i tried 301 redirect from index.html to the root it created an indefinite loop, of course.

      I know I can use a RewriteRule.., but will it transfer the juice??

      Please help!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 7
      • Nikos-Kor
        Nikos-Kor @StreamlineMetrics last edited by

        @streamlinemetrics this worked for my site Finbit Solutions, too! Thank you very much!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • salena580
          salena580 @StreamlineMetrics last edited by

          It works good for my site https://uaedesertsafari.com/

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • wideangle
            wideangle @StreamlineMetrics last edited by

            works, thank you!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • almusammem
              almusammem @StreamlineMetrics last edited by

              Thank you very much, this works fine with me.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • webfeatus
                webfeatus last edited by

                Google may see this as a 301 but MOZ crawl does not seem to.
                Can you please help explain this?

                I am looking for a good .htaccess code for this redirect.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • enxaqueca
                  enxaqueca last edited by

                  Thank you, Streamline Metrics. I looked everywhere and tried several different edits in my htaccess for a 301 redirect from index.html to root, but none worked. Your code worked wonderfully.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • romanbond
                    romanbond @StreamlineMetrics last edited by

                    that seems to be working well. thanks a lot for your help.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • StreamlineMetrics
                      StreamlineMetrics @romanbond last edited by

                      If you want to redirect all index.html(s) to their roots, then try this code -

                      RewriteEngine On
                      RewriteRule ^index.html$ / [R=301,L]
                      RewriteRule ^(.*)/index.html$ /$1/ [R=301,L]

                      And yes, Google will treat them as 301 redirects so your juice will be transferred and consolidated.

                      romanbond almusammem wideangle salena580 Nikos-Kor 5 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 6
                      • romanbond
                        romanbond @StreamlineMetrics last edited by

                        thanks, that was quick!
                        A couple of questions before i go ahead and implement it:

                        will this rule re-direct all index.html(s) to their appropriate roots or will it work just for the home page?
                        Also, as far as user's expirience is concerned this will take care of redirecting requests to show index.html to the root, but what about the juice transfer. Will Google treat it as 301?

                        StreamlineMetrics 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
                        • StreamlineMetrics
                          StreamlineMetrics last edited by

                          It's definitely a good idea to 301 redirect index.html to your root to consolidate link juice. I am assuming you have an .htaccess file so the following lines should work -

                          RewriteEngine On
                          RewriteBase /

                          redirect html pages to the root domain

                          RewriteRule ^index.html$ / [NC,R,L]

                          romanbond 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 6
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