Changing the sites root folder

[SeoSheikh]

Hi am in the process of developing my new site domainname.com/devs/ but my current site is still on www.domainname.com/

When the time comes to launch the new site (in devs folder) I want to change the main root folder to this devs folder.

Is there a correct system to do this with as little pain as possible. I know I will need to go through all of my pages and make sure they are 301 redirected to the new folder, but not sure what the correct way to tackle the domain name root folder change.

Any help would be awesome!

Thanks

[Ray-pp]

Hi Alex - Are you saying that you want your www.domain.com to resolve to www.domain.com/devs/ ?

If so, I would highly suggest that you consider using www.domain.com as your primary location and URL - unless your website is somehow targeted to 'devs' and it make sense to keep it in the URL structure. If not, it is preferred to have the shorter, more concise URL.

Making this change depends on your host environment and website setup. Are you using a custom web app or something like WordPress?

[RyanPurkey]

There are several ways to do this, but it sounds like you want the files served from /devs/ to appear as root on www.domainname.com.

1. Rename current root in FTP to /WHATEVER-old/ and copy the contents of the /devs/ folder into the root.
2. Point the domain root to /devs/ instead of it's current root.
3. 301 redirect any old page that won't have a matching url on the new site, preferably to the most relevant page content.
4. Modify the .htaccess file to point to the /devs/ folder.

Like Ray already said, it is dependent on your hosting setup, CMS or website software, and so on, but setting a root folder is fairly standard. Here's one example from Bluehost.com: http://www.bluehostforum.com/showthread.php?9844-Change-Root-Folder. Your own host should have specific technical documentation.

[SeoSheikh]

Hi Ryan, I'm running an ecommerce site (opencart) on the /devs/ folder so will that cause me problems do you think if I just copy the files over to the root?

If I follow the link you gave me (bluehostforum) it appears all I need to do is add the code in my .htaccess file. Do I still need to move all the files from my /devs/ folder if I tackle this from the .htaccess file code?

[RyanPurkey]

The nice thing about .htaccess is it's easy to test. Save your current file locally, upload a new one with the changes that you think will make your /devs/ folder the new root, and then test.  If it doesn't work, overwrite the new .htaccess with the old one and determine where you might have gone wrong.  It doesn't involve moving any other files on your server.  Again, depending on your host they might have specific instructions for changing the root folder as well.

[SeoSheikh]

Thanks Ryan, I shall give it a go and let you know how I get on.

[SeoSheikh]

Hi Ryan, I did this set up but I can't seem to get my 301 redirects to work properly. This is what I have:

www.foliages.ae now points to www.foliages.ae/devs/

But when I try and redirect a page to a new one it doesn't work. For example:

www.foliages.ae/buy-online/artificial-trees-dubai/artificial-olive-trees should point to http://www.foliages.ae/artificial-trees/olive but instead I get http://www.foliages.ae/?_route_=artificial-trees-dubai/artificial-olive-trees

I have the following .htaccess code in the root folder:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?foliages.ae$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/devs/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /devs/$1
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?foliages.ae$
RewriteRule ^(/)?$ devs/index.php [L]

And in my /devs/ folder .htaccess I have:

1.To use URL Alias you need to be running apache with mod_rewrite enabled.

2. In your opencart directory rename htaccess.txt to .htaccess.

For any support issues please visit: http://www.opencart.com

Options +FollowSymlinks

Prevent Directoy listing

Options -Indexes

Prevent Direct Access to files

<filesmatch ".(tpl|ini|log)"="">Order deny,allow
Deny from all</filesmatch>

SEO URL Settings

RewriteEngine On

If your opencart installation does not run on the main web folder make sure you folder it does run in ie. / becomes /shop/

RewriteBase /devs/
RewriteRule ^sitemap.xml$ index.php?route=feed/google_sitemap [L]
RewriteRule ^googlebase.xml$ index.php?route=feed/google_base [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !..(ico|gif|jpg|jpeg|png|js|css)
RewriteRule ^([^?]) index.php?route=$1 [L,QSA]

Additional Settings that may need to be enabled for some servers

Uncomment the commands by removing the # sign in front of it.

If you get an "Internal Server Error 500" after enabling any of the following settings, restore the # as this means your host doesn't allow that.

1. If your cart only allows you to add one item at a time, it is possible register_globals is on. This may work to disable it:

php_flag register_globals off

2. If your cart has magic quotes enabled, This may work to disable it:

php_flag magic_quotes_gpc Off

3. Set max upload file size. Most hosts will limit this and not allow it to be overridden but you can try

php_value upload_max_filesize 999M

4. set max post size. uncomment this line if you have a lot of product options or are getting errors where forms are not saving all fields

php_value post_max_size 999M

5. set max time script can take. uncomment this line if you have a lot of product options or are getting errors where forms are not saving all fields

php_value max_execution_time 200

6. set max time for input to be recieved. Uncomment this line if you have a lot of product options or are getting errors where forms are not saving all fields

php_value max_input_time 200

7. disable open_basedir limitations

php_admin_value open_basedir none

redirect 301 /buy-online http://www.foliages.ae
redirect 301 /buy-online/artificial-trees-dubai/artificial-olive-trees http://www.foliages.ae/devs/artificial-trees/olive

Any ideas?

[RyanPurkey]

Too bad that didn't work. Your code isn't changing out the URL past "/buy-online" and is appending "?route=" instead.

Plus you're getting duplicate content via:
http://www.foliages.ae/devs/artificial-trees/olive
and
http://www.foliages.ae/artificial-trees/olive

The help docs on mod_write are here: https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/rewrite/intro.html and they warn, "Rewriting is typically configured in the main server configuration setting (outside any <directory>section) or inside <virtualhost>containers. This is the easiest way to do rewriting and is recommended. It is possible, however, to do rewriting inside <directory>sections or .htaccess files at the expense of some additional complexity. This technique is called per-directory rewrites.

The main difference with per-server rewrites is that the path prefix of the directory containing the .htaccess file is stripped before matching in the RewriteRule. In addition, the RewriteBase should be used to assure the request is properly mapped."</directory></virtualhost></directory>

You'll have to crack this on your own or hire out for it unless someone else chimes in.

[SeoSheikh]

Hi Ryan, I have now since moved the website to the old root folder / instead of /devs/. I have also removed the old .htaccess that redirected my domainname.com to domainname.com/devs/.

For some strange reason though I'm still getting the "?route=" whenever i'm doing a new 301 redirect. You can see my htaccess below:

1.To use URL Alias you need to be running apache with mod_rewrite enabled.

2. In your opencart directory rename htaccess.txt to .htaccess.

For any support issues please visit: http://www.opencart.com

Options +FollowSymlinks

Prevent Directoy listing

Options -Indexes

Prevent Direct Access to files

<filesmatch ".(tpl|ini|log)"="">Order deny,allow
Deny from all</filesmatch>

SEO URL Settings

RewriteEngine On

If your opencart installation does not run on the main web folder make sure you folder it does run in ie. / becomes /shop/

RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^sitemap.xml$ index.php?route=feed/google_sitemap [L]
RewriteRule ^googlebase.xml$ index.php?route=feed/google_base [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !..(ico|gif|jpg|jpeg|png|js|css)
RewriteRule ^([^?]) index.php?route=$1 [L,QSA]

Additional Settings that may need to be enabled for some servers

Uncomment the commands by removing the # sign in front of it.

If you get an "Internal Server Error 500" after enabling any of the following settings, restore the # as this means your host doesn't allow that.

1. If your cart only allows you to add one item at a time, it is possible register_globals is on. This may work to disable it:

php_flag register_globals off

2. If your cart has magic quotes enabled, This may work to disable it:

php_flag magic_quotes_gpc Off

3. Set max upload file size. Most hosts will limit this and not allow it to be overridden but you can try

php_value upload_max_filesize 999M

4. set max post size. uncomment this line if you have a lot of product options or are getting errors where forms are not saving all fields

php_value post_max_size 999M

5. set max time script can take. uncomment this line if you have a lot of product options or are getting errors where forms are not saving all fields

php_value max_execution_time 200

6. set max time for input to be recieved. Uncomment this line if you have a lot of product options or are getting errors where forms are not saving all fields

php_value max_input_time 200

7. disable open_basedir limitations

php_admin_value open_basedir none

redirect 301 /buy-online http://www.foliages.ae/

[RyanPurkey]

Your $1 variable is coming after the '?route=' bit. You can test htaccess code here: http://htaccess.madewithlove.be.

[RyanPurkey]

Also useful: https://github.com/phanan/htaccess.  Cheers!