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Learn how to permanently redirect from one URL to another using the `.htaccess` file, ensuring clean and user-friendly URLs for your website.
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This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/64863538/ asked by the user 'Three Year Old' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/14512582/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/64863970/ provided by the user 'arkascha' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/1248114/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

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How to Effectively Redirect URLs Using .htaccess

In the world of web development, maintaining clean URLs is crucial for both user experience and search engine optimization. One common challenge developers face is how to permanently redirect URLs, particularly when dealing with dynamic content. This article will dive into solving such a problem using the .htaccess file on an Apache server.

The Problem

Imagine you have a page accessible at example.com/foo.php, but you want to redirect users to the cleaner URL example.com/foo. Not only that, you want to ensure that if someone visits example.com/foo.php, they are redirected seamlessly to example.com/foo or even redirected to example.com/bar instead. This issue raises a question about how to efficiently manage these redirections.

The Solution

To achieve the desired redirection without losing any visitor traffic or negatively impacting your site's SEO, you can utilize the power of .htaccess together with Apache's mod_rewrite module. Below, we’ll explore the code needed to make this redirection effective.

Step 1: Enable the Rewrite Engine

Before you can perform any redirection, you need to ensure that the rewrite engine is enabled in your .htaccess file. You can start by adding the following line:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Step 2: Redirecting PHP to Clean URLs

This section covers how to redirect requests from example.com/foo.php to example.com/foo. Here’s the code snippet that will help accomplish this:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Explanation:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f: Checks if the requested file exists.

RewriteRule ^/?(.+ ).php$ /$1 [QSA,R=301,END]: Redirects the URL by stripping out the .php extension and issuing a 301 permanent redirect.

Step 3: Handle Clean URL Routing Internally

Next, to ensure that clean URLs are correctly processed by your server, you can add the following rules:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Explanation:

This checks that the requested URL doesn't correspond to a directory or an existing file.

If it's a clean URL (like example.com/foo), it rewrites the request to the actual PHP file behind the scenes, allowing the server to handle it appropriately.

Redirecting to a Different Target

If you want to redirect example.com/foo.php directly to example.com/bar, here's how you can modify your .htaccess:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

What This Does:

The first rule handles the direct redirection to bar.php when foo is requested, while the other rules still facilitate the clean URL approach and internal file processing.

Conclusion

Using the .htaccess file for URL redirection can greatly enhance your hosting setup, improve SEO, and maintain a seamless experience for your users. By following the steps outlined above, you can effectively redirect from .php URLs to cleaner, more user-friendly alternatives.

Now that you’ve mastered this skill, it’s time to implement these steps and streamline your website's URLs today!