Htaccess tutorial and tips

In this htaccess tutorial and tips tutorial, we are basically going to learn about .htaccess file.

Before you start, you should have a basic knowledge of Regular Expression.

Here we don’t discuss Regular Expression. So I assumed that you already know about Regular Expression –

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What is .htaccess file ?

.htaccess (hypertext access) is a configuration file. By using this file you can easily configure the Apache web server, such as you can enable or disable additional functionality and features of the Apache Server.

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How to use .htaccess file ?

It is simple to use, just create a .htaccess file on your website’s root directory and it will be automatically detected and executed by the Apache web server. Note that it is not a file extension.

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1. Handling Error documents

ErrorDocument [error_code] [path of the file which you want to show]

ErrorDocument 401 /error_pages/401.html
ErrorDocument 404 /error_pages/404.html
ErrorDocument 500 /error_pages/500.html

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2. Redirects

Redirect [old path or url] [new path or url]
Redirect the index.html file to index2.html

Redirect /index.html /index2.html

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3. Use regular expressions to redirect

If you want to use Regular Expressions to redirect to another path, use RedirectMatch

RedirectMatch "^/index\.html/?$" "/index.php"

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4. Redirect non-existing pages to the specific page

If a visitor tries to reach a page that does not exist, then you can redirect the visitor to a specific page by using the following code.

RewriteEngine On 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

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5. Adding www in the URL

You can easily redirect your non-www domain or URL to www by adding the following code.

http://example.com/
to
http://www.example.com/

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RewriteEngine On 
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]

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6. Removing www in the URL

You can easily remove www on your domain or URL by using the following code.

http://www.example.com/
to
http://example.com/

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RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,QSA,NC,L]

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7. Attaching https in the URL

Add https on your domain or url by using the following code.

http://example.com/
to
https://example.com/

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RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !on
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

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8. Detaching https in the URL

Remove https from your domain or url by using the following code.

https://example.com/
to
http://example.com/

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RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
RewriteRule (.*) http://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

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9. Make SEO Friendly URL

By using a .htaccess file you can easily make an SEO friendly URL. Let’s have a look –

1 – Example

http://www.example.com/index.php?name=John
to
http://www.example.com/name/John

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RewriteEngine On 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^name/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)$ index.php?name=$1 [NC,L]

2 – Example

http://www.example.com/index.php?name=John&age=19
to
http://www.example.com/name/John/19

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RewriteEngine On 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^name/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)/([0-9]+)$ index.php?name=$1&age=$2 [NC,L]

3 – Example

http://www.example.com/home-page.html
to
http://www.example.com/home

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RewriteEngine On 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^home/?$ home-page.html [NC,L]

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10. Remove file extension

http://www.example.com/about.html
to
http://www.example.com/about

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RewriteEngine On 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^([^\.]+)$ $1.html [NC,L]

Tip – If you want to remove the PHP file extension, then just remove .html and add .php

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Note:

Write rewrite rules all the time inside the <IfModule mod_rewrite.c></IfModule> tag.

Because if your rewrite feature is disabled on your Apache server, it will turn on that feature, otherwise you can get Error.

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^([^\.]+)$ $1.html [NC,L]
</IfModule>