Is it necessary to 301 rewrite /index.php to /?

[LauraHT]

Hi,

We have build a lot of external link to http://www.oursite.com/ Do I have to do a 301 redirect from http://www.oursite.com/index.php to http://www.outsite.com/?

Thanks

[Devanur-Rafi]

Hi, ideally only one version of the URL should throw an HTTP header status code 200 and rest all can be redirected to the preferred version via 301.

Suppose, http://www.abc.com is your preferred version (the www version), all others like,

http://abc.com, http://abc.com/index.html, http://www.abc.com/index.php etc., can be redirected to the www version via 301. It is highly recommended to maintain this consistency through out your website. You can use a tool like the following to check if you have multiple versions of your homepage return status 200.

http://www.ragepank.com/redirect-check/

Hope it helps. Good Luck.

Best regards,

Devanur Rafi