Redirect chains from switch to HTTPS
-
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/$1 [R=301,L]However, they also have simple redirects below this rule that redirect one page to another, such as:
Redirect 301 /old.php https://www.clientdomain.com/new.php
This is causing redirect chains like this:
(A) http://www.clientdomain.com/old.php > (B) https://www.clientdomain.com/old.php > (C) https://www.clientdomain.com/new.php
Is there any way to rewrite the rules in .htaccess to get rid of these redirect chains? So that URL A goes directly to URL C?
Thank you!
-
Hi,
We are still waiting for the developer to make the change. I will certainly post the answer when we know for sure!
Thanks
-
Hi was this ever resolved as this would help many people?
-
Thank you!! Just sent it
-
Yes - of course. Happy to take a look.
-
Hi Will,
That is correct - the developer told me that's exactly what he did. Could I send you a screenshot of the actual .htaccess file in a private message?
Thank you!
-
Hi Lori,
On closer inspection, I think that only the rewriterule should have the [L] flag and that placing the specific Redirect at the top of the file should work fine without chained redirects as the other commenters suggested. I tested that here: http://htaccess.mwl.be/ and it appears to work fine using the following .htaccess - can you confirm with your developer that this is what they were trying?:
Redirect 301 /old.php https://www.clientdomain.com/new.php
RewriteEngine on
if non-SSL and one of these, redirect to SSL
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.clientdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L] -
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]
-
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?
-
So the developer got back to me and said he had tried that but the redirect chain still occurred. Any other ideas?
-
So the developer got back to me and said he had tried that but the redirect chain still occurred. Any other ideas?
-
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
-
Thank you! Will try and let you know
-
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.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
301 Redirect in breadcrumb. How bad is it?
Hi all, How bad is it to have a link in the breadcrumb that 301 redirects? We had to create some hidden category pages in our ecommerce platform bigcommerce to create a display on our category pages in a certain format. Though whilst the category page was set to not visable in bigcommerce admin the URL still showed in the live site bread crumb. SO, we set a 301 redirect on it so it didnt produce a 404. However we have lost a lot of SEO ground the past few months. could this be why? is it bad to have a 301 redirect in the breadrcrumb.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | oceanstorm0 -
Redirect Juice?
Hello all! I have a partner site that is linking their product page (step 1) to our product page (step 2) and then we instantly forward them to our shopping cart page (step 3) with that product added. Will my product page (step 2) get the SEO juice from our partners link (step 1) even though we instantly forward to our shopping cart page (step 3)? Curious about ways to technically do this correctly. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jamesmcd030 -
Https vs Http Link Equity
Hi Guys, So basically have a site which has both HTTPs and HTTP versions of each page. We want to consolidate them due to potential duplicate content issues with the search engines. Most of the HTTP pages naturally have most of the links and more authority then the HTTPs pages since they have been around longer. E.g. the normal http hompage has 50 linking root domains while the https version has 5. So we are a bit concerned of adding a rel canonical tag & telling the search engines that the preferred page is the https page not the http page (where most of the link equity and social signals are). Could there potentially be a ranking loss if we do this, what would be best practice in this case? Thanks, Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright0 -
301 redirect recommendations
One of our clients we are working on have two sites the main with a PR5 and a separate one with a PR4. We are planning on doing a 301 from the PR4 to a page on the PR5 Is it best to do: www.PR4.com ----> www.PR5.com/releveantPR4page or www.PR4.com/page ----> www.PR5.com/releveantPR4page Most pages on the PR4 site can fit into one PR5 page logically. However the PR4 has an about us, contact us, blog/with posts, FAQ, Applications, Legal Resources which are all pretty out dated.. The PR4 site is kinda messy and we are not sure if it will be easy to 301 each page individually with the user in mind. can we do a sitewide 301 redirect from the root PR4.com to a page PR/5.com/releveantPR4page and also do deeper 301's? PR4.com/PR4page ---> PR5.com/releveantPR4page
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bryan_Loconto0 -
301 redirect
Hi there, I have some good links pointing to one of my web pages at the moment, however we are just about to launch a new design with new URL structure and I am clear that I need to do a 301 redirect on the URL to the new URL. However, do I keep the old URL live forever? or can I remove it after a while? Kind Regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780 -
Login redirect 302
Ok - anyone knows what to do with the temporary redirect to the login page? In our e-commerce system we have a checkout page, which requires user to be logged in - if they are not, we redirect them to the login page using simple php header("Locaiton: url"). This however has been found as a Warning as it's a temporary redirect. I can't really put there permanent redirect for obvious reasons so if someone could give me some clue on this situation that would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | coremediadesign0 -
Redirecting Powerful Domains
What do you do if you have a client that never implemented a 301 redirect on their domain? For example here are the OSE stats for the URLs; http://url.com PA: 48 DA: 50 LRD: 65 TL: 1,084 FB: 178 FB: 14 T:5 http://www.url.com PA: 51 DA: 50 LRD: 165 TL: 2,271 FB: 178 FB: 14 T:5 G+1:3 My first instincts are to redirect the first one to the second one, but is it too late for that? Will that screw up all of their established stats? Any input or examples of past experiences with this would be great.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MichaelWeisbaum0 -
Redirects Going to the Wrong Place
I just checked our rankings for a few of our top keywords from a previously merged domain, and we are not anywhere on the first page (we used to rank #1). I then manually typed in the url of a top product we sell from our old site that was merged into the new site. It turns out that the redirect isn't going to the right place at all (which probably explains why the page isn't ranking). Here is part of the code from our htaccess file: RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^neuroformulas.com$ [OR]
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vitasouthmktg
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.neuroformulas.com$
RewriteRule ^/?$ "http://www.vitasouth.com/brands/NeuroScience.html" [R=301,L] ErrorDocument 404 /404.html redirect 301 /products/Kavinace.html http://www.vitasouth.com/products/NeuroScience-Kavinace.html The bottom redirect (http://www.neuroformulas.com/products/Kavinace.html) should be going to the url specified. Instead, it goes to http://www.vitasouth.com/NeuroScience.html/Kavinace.html (NOT A VALID URL!). Please help! Thanks! -Matt0