Redirect Chain Advice

[DaleZon]

Hi,

i hope you can help.

My site crawl is showing that I have a redirect chain on my home page. Basically it shows I am going from :

http: > https: > https://www.

I need everything to go from http:// and http://www directly to https://www. without the chain.

Below is a copy of the htaccess, can anyone see if there is an error in there that could be causing it.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

BEGIN WordPress

<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]</ifmodule>

END WordPress

In addition, i have seen that they have a plugin called

SSL insecure content fixer installed.

It is showing this under its status:

Array
(
    [HTTPS] => on
    [PHPHANDLER] => /usr/local/php70/bin/php
    [HTTP_X_REAL_IP] => 109.158.20.158
    [HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO] => https
)

I think possibly this might have something to do with the issue, any thoughts are appreciated

Thanks

[Seenlyst]

Hello there,

Actually, I think this article could really help you! https://www.danielmorell.com/guides/htaccess-seo/https-www-and-trailing-slash

Alternatively, if you want to get the rules right away, just copy below, change the "example.com" to your domain then it should be working.

Force HTTPS

Force WWW

Remove trailing / from file

Turn on rewrite engine

RewriteEngine on

Check if not directory and ends in /

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.+)/$

If not a directory skip next RewriteRule

RewriteRule ^ - [S=2]

Check if HTTPS and WWW

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.(.*)$ [OR,NC]
RewriteCond %{https} off

This RewriteRule skipped if URI was a directory

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

This RewriteRule used if URI was a directory

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^ - [S=1]
RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Do note, this 301 redirect your URL to the version with trailing slash, and because Google sees the trailing slash and non-trailing slash version of your pages as a different page, you should be doing a 301 to the right one. Read more about it here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-trailing-slashes-url-24943.html

Of course, you can choose to remove the trailing slash 301 redirecting, Moz doesn't redirect to either version, and they rank well. But sites like Neilpatel (they have unnecessary redirects) and Backlinko does redirect, and they rank well too. So it's up to you if you want Google to help you identify which version you prefer or you tell Google yourself.

Finally, you can use this tool to check if your redirects are working as you expected: https://httpstatus.io/ (When you test, use a blog page or a specific page to test all the 8 variations because trailing slash doesn't matter at the homepage, take a look at screenshots below)

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