Redirect chains from switch to HTTPS

[roundabout]

Hi,

We have a client who recently switched their site to https://

The rule to force redirect non-secure URLs to https is in their .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine on

if non-SSL and one of these, redirect to SSL

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.clientdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

However, they also have simple redirects below this rule that redirect one page to another, such as:

Redirect 301 /old.php https://www.clientdomain.com/new.php

This is causing redirect chains like this:

(A) http://www.clientdomain.com/old.php > (B) https://www.clientdomain.com/old.php > (C) https://www.clientdomain.com/new.php

Is there any way to rewrite the rules in .htaccess to get rid of these redirect chains? So that URL A goes directly to URL C?

Thank you!

[roundabout]

Hi,

We are still waiting for the developer to make the change. I will certainly post the answer when we know for sure!

Thanks

[lbagley]

Hi was this ever resolved as this would help many people?

[roundabout]

Thank you!! Just sent it

[willcritchlow]

Yes - of course. Happy to take a look.

[roundabout]

Hi Will,

That is correct - the developer told me that's exactly what he did. Could I send you a screenshot of the actual .htaccess file in a private message?

Thank you!

[willcritchlow]

Hi Lori,

On closer inspection, I think that only the rewriterule should have the [L] flag and that placing the specific Redirect at the top of the file should work fine without chained redirects as the other commenters suggested. I tested that here: http://htaccess.mwl.be/ and it appears to work fine using the following .htaccess - can you confirm with your developer that this is what they were trying?:

Redirect 301 /old.php https://www.clientdomain.com/new.php

RewriteEngine on

if non-SSL and one of these, redirect to SSL

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.clientdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

[roundabout]

Thank you Will! Just one question, so if it's a simple redirect from one page to another, it would look like this? Or is adding [R=301,L] only for those that start with RewriteRule?

Redirect 301 /Bamboo https://www.fauxpanels.com/style-wood.php [R=301,L]

[willcritchlow]

Hi Lori. The solution the other commenters have suggested is definitely the way to do this - so it sounds like it needs more debugging. I suspect it's to do with the [L] option being needed on the specific redirect once it's moved above the general http-->https redirect. This stops other redirects below it firing, if I remember correctly.

If that doesn't work, do you want to share back here the specific different htaccess files the developer has tried?

[roundabout]

So the developer got back to me and said he had tried that but the redirect chain still occurred. Any other ideas?

[roundabout]

So the developer got back to me and said he had tried that but the redirect chain still occurred. Any other ideas?

[ThompsonPaul]

The easy solution (and recommended best practice) is to put the specific individual redirects above the HTTPS redirect in the htaccess file. Just make certain the legacy individual redirects point to the correct HTTPS version to start with.

It's standard procedure to have an htaccess file list the most specifically targeted rules first, gradually moving to the more general.

Hope that helps?

Paul

[roundabout]

Thank you! Will try and let you know

[iugac]

I guess you could probably do this by checking the https rule at last. So if it is old.php, the first thing you do is redirect to the new.php but already on the https. So all your static redirects will automatically go to https with one redirect while the other will always reach the last rule and go to the secure versions. Let me know if this helps.