Help needed please with 301 redirects in htaccess file.

[petersommertravels]

In summary, we're currently having issues with our htaccess file. 301 redirects are going through to the new described URL but in addition the new URL is followed by a ? and the old URL. How can we get rid of the ? and previous URL so they don't appear as an ending.

None of the examples we've found re this issue online appear to work. Can anyone please offer some advice? Can we use a RewriteRule to stop this happening?

Here's a summary of the htaccess file

REDIRECT CODE BEGINS HERE

LONG LIST OF REDIRECTS, which appear to be set up perfectly fine.

REDIRECT CODE ENDS

DirectoryIndex index.php

<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On

Options +FollowSymLinks
        DirectoryIndex index.php
        RewriteEngine On
        RewriteCond $1 !^(images|system|themes|pdf|favicon.ico|robots.txt|index.php) [NC]
        RewriteRule ^.htaccess$ - [F]
        RewriteRule ^favicon.ico - [L]
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
        RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?/$1 [L]</ifmodule>

DirectoryIndex index.php

[UnderRugSwept]

Are you putting the code in the .htaccess of the root directory of of the gallery directory? If you're putting it in the root, that is your first mistake. Try putting the following code in the .htaccess of the gallery directory:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

RedirectMatch 301 (.*)kaunos-tombs-dalyan-photo.html$ http://www.petersommer.com/gallery/

Replace the .html with .php or whatever the extension of the kaunos-tombs-dalyan-photo file is.

One question, though. Is kaunos-tombs-dalyan-photo a directory or a file? meaning is your URL technically this: http://www.petersommer.com/gallery/?/gallery/kaunos-tombs-dalyan-photo.html or this: http://www.petersommer.com/gallery/?/gallery/kaunos-tombs-dalyan-photo/index.html

[petersommertravels]

Thanks so much for the quick response Marisa. Apologies if I've confused in any way.

The 301 redirect of the gallery tombs is just one of a long list of redirects, hence 'other redirects...' I removed the rest just for ease.

The htaccess is in the main root. I just happened to leave a gallery page as an example of a redirect.

I wondered if there might be a Rewriterule that I could include in the file to solve this issue across the board rather than deal individually - there's about 100 redirects including the one mentioned.

If you can assist further that would be brilliant! I'd really appreciate it.

best wishes,

Peter

[UnderRugSwept]

I'm not sure if I can help further or not, since I'm certainly not an Apache coding expert. Right off the bat it seems like you may have a dynamic URL redirect already in place, so when you add anther redirect, it's in a sense, putting a double redirect on the URLs.

I wish I could help further, but one thing I will say is that the only way I've found redirects from multiple directories to work is to put the redirects in each corresponding directory's .htaccess file, and not the root. I wish there was an easier way to do it, and if there is, I hope someone will chime in here and enlighten us.

Sorry I couldn't be of further assistance.

[petersommertravels]

Thanks for trying Marisa. Appreciate your time and effort. Best wishes, Peter

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Hi Peter,

Would love to help out, but by this point in the thread I'm thoughtfully confused! Any chance we could start from the beginning? If you would like, please list

• exactly an example URL you are trying to redirect,
• The exact code that isn't working
• The end result of how it redirects.

Not promising I can help any more than Marisa, and maybe my brain just hurts right now, but I'm willing to give it a shot.  Thanks.

[petersommertravels]

Many thanks Cyrus. Sorry to hear you're confused! Thank you for offering to help.

There are redirects of a number of old pages. Here's a sample of them.

redirect 301 /index.html http://www.petersommer.com/

redirect 301 /writing_index.html http://www.petersommer.com/travel-writing/

Unfortunately I'm not sure what isn't working or what needs to be done to fix it. I wish I did! I assume it must be something in the Rewrite Rules or we need to add in some Rewrite Rules to fix it.

All the redirects are unfortunately adding a ? and the old URL to the end of the new redirected URL.

All are following the same pattern - unfortunately.

If you can see any glitches in the Rewrite Rules or can identify something we need to add that will be super.

Thanks again, Peter

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Ha! I always get myself into trouble when trying to answer these .htaccess questions. Someday I'll learn.

I'm not an expert, but here's one thing you can try. Make sure to backup your file before you attempt these, in case you break something you want to be able to quickly back it up. My suspicion is there are conflicting rules in the file that are causing the wrong redirection.

-Try changing your rewrite rules to the following format. The "L" indicates this is the last directive, and place no more rewriting rules on this condition.

RewriteRule ^tours2006.html http://www.petersommer.com/escorted-archaeological-tours/ [L,R=301]

If this doesn't work, let me know and I'll try to find someone who knows more.

[petersommertravels]

Hi Cyrus,

Thank you so very much. Success! I can't tell you how delighted and grateful I am. I have spent hours over the Easter weekend trying to fix it, but to no avail. You are a god in my eyes! You have made my day and halted the rash of broken/duped links emanating from our website.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Very best,

Peter