Calling all 301 htaccess Guru's - www to non www - then to https + Redirect homepage to inner page

[Jes-Extender-Australia]

I have tried searching, multiple opinions and multiple things that supposedly work.

What I have now, seems to work from an end user perspective, but Roger tells me otherwise: Redirect Chain issue....redirect, which redirects which redirects etc.....

FIRST, we need to redirect all www to non www.

SECOND, we need to redirect all to https.

THIRD, we need to redirect the homepage to an inner page. (Got to love BOGUS DMCA complaints! :)?)

So far we have:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mydomain.com.au$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.mydomain.com.au$
RewriteRule ^/?$ "https://mydomain.com.au/inner-page-here" [R=301,L]

Plus down the page there is the usual wordpress settings:

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

So, why does it seem to work for the end user, but Roger has his knickers in a knot saying, redirect, to redirect to redirect etc?

Namaste and many thank you's in advance

[eli.myers]

Hey!

Thanks for reaching out to us!

When we point out a redirect chain, the idea is to reduce the number of redirects in total.

Let's say you had three URLs - URL A, B and C. URL A redirects to URL B, which redirects again to URL C. You'd want to remove the redirects for URL B in the middle, so that URL redirects straight to URL C.

I've had a look at your Campaign and one of the redirect chain's we are flagging up: https://www.screencast.com/t/kHnwGBcdvb (I used a third party tool - https://httpstatus.io/ ) - As you can see there are 3 redirects in place, would it be possible to cut it down to just one redirect? This minimises moving parts and would fix that redirect chain.

Of course, it's best to check with your website administrator that this is the best move in your case, as each site is completely different.

Unfortunately I am not a web developer so cannot advise on the code within your page, just the tools we provide

Feel free to write in to help@moz.com if you would like to follow up with any specific questions!

Thanks!

Eli

[Jes-Extender-Australia]

Found this, but I do not know if both portions need to be added or one....any thoughts?

To redirect www to non-www

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.your_domain.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://your_domain.com/$1 [R=301]

To redirect www to non-www (while using SSL)

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.your_domain.com$
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} ^443
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://your_domain.com/$1 [R=301]

So... would both be needed, and what would the additional part be to redirect home to an inner page?

Thank you in advance!

[eli.myers]

I would normally advise that you speak to a web developer for a question like this. Perhaps something else on the forum who reads this question will be able to advise?

Unfortunately I am not able to help out with the code in this situation, sorry about that!

Eli

[Jes-Extender-Australia]

Hi Eli,

Thank you for your response.

You actually pointed out a specific redirect that was in place, but what we were redirecting didn't exist i.e 301 redirect /tag/ThisExists-ButThisTypoDoesnt - do you think that would be the cause? Although, if the tag/post didn't exist how did Roger pick it up, through htaccess?

We are in the process of redirecting our /tag and /category posts to more appropriate pages. I will re-crawl and see if the same issue pops up fingers crossed.

[Jes-Extender-Australia]

All good, thanks for your help

Just realised too, we have put a plugin in place to redirect all 404's to a sitemap page....probably the 3 step redirect issue Moz is picking up on....got to love this stuff. Always keeps you on your toes.

[eli.myers]

Haha it certainly does! Thanks for keeping me updated