.htaccess https to http question

[robmob]

Hi

I have spent a couple of hours this morning trying to ensure I use the correct text in the .htaccess file to redirect http://.domain.com to the www. version and also https://www.domain.com to the non https version.

The code I used is:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^performancemotorcare.com$ [nc]
Rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.performancemotorcare.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
Rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.performancemotorcare.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

However the problem I am having is https://performancemotorcare.com which then routes to
http://www.performancemotorcare.com/...motorcare.com/ - which does not exist as a page and looks awful on the screen.

Is there something very simple I am missing or is my approach the wrong one.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Rob

[Mark H]

I don't think you need to direct the https version to the http version - have you tried it without that bit?

The net effect of what you're doing is that everything is going to:

http://www.performancemotorcare.com/http://www.performancemotorcare.com/

Which looks awful probably because it can't find its images or CSS.

[robmob]

Mark

Many thanks. The reason we are looking to do it is that we appear to have canonicalization issues. Specifically, some pages in Google's index are from www.performancemotorcare.com, some from performancemotorcare.com, and some from https://www.performancemotorcare.com. This is potentially creating duplicate content and PageRank dilution.

It may be that there aren't any pages in https://performancemotorcare.com and that the scenario will not occur unless I specifically type it - which is where I relaised it was happening in testing all variations?

Regards

Rob

[dave_finlayson]

What you want to do is add:-

RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} ^443$
RewriteRule ^robots.txt$ robots_ssl.txt

to your .htaccess then create a file called robots_ssl.txt in your root with the following inside it:-

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

Once you've done all that go to https://yourdomain.com/robots.txt and you should find it displays the ssl version.

[robmob]

Dave

Many thanks. That looks like a neat solution to the problem. I note the reference ^robots.txt$ - will the existing robots.txt file continue to be referenced as normal for non https?

Regards

[dave_finlayson]

Yes. Just visit the robots.txt in the browser after you've made the changes and make sure the http version shows different content to the https version

[robmob]

Thanks Dave. Confirm all looking as it should with both files displaying the different content. Just need to wait for Google to pick up on this and stop indexing the https. Many thanks again for your help.

Regards

[dave_finlayson]

Aye, took a few weeks for our to drop off but they do eventually!

[graphicz]

I did do a 'thanks' but just wanted to say again that this is a cracking fix! Thank you.

[newshopbloke]

SSL and htaccess

What you want to do is add:-

RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} ^443$
RewriteRule ^robots.txt$ robots_ssl.txt

to your .htaccess then create a file called robots_ssl.txt in your root with the following inside it:-

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

Once you've done all that go to https://yourdomain.com/robots.txt and you should find it displays the ssl version.

Hello everyone,

Im about to sign up with a host that applies ssl to every page which means all my google links will be dead as it will no longer be http but https, am I right in saying all I need to do is to open notepad, put the above code in, call it .htaccess and ftp it to the server root, or have I got it all wrong ? Is there a better thread on the forums for this ?

Thanks,

Michael

[graphicz]

Doesn't Work with some Hosting Companies

This doesn't work with my Hosting company (Heart)

Here is my dialogue with them:

The SSL is across the whole site but it is only used on the login and checkout pages.

Therefore I wanted to stopp Google indexing the SSL versions of the main site pages.

I did what I have done before: ie:
create robots.txt -
User-agent: *
Allow: /
create robots_ssl.txt -
User-agent: *
Dissallow: /

And add this line to htaccess:

RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} ^443$
RewriteRule ^robots.txt$ robots_ssl.txt

The lines:
RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymlinks

Already exist at the top of the htaccess.

It has worked for me before but it dos not work on this site.
Is the SSL server port different?

This doesn't work due to the way that we load balance our servers. In this case, the SSL is on port 80 by default on each server, but the load balancer checks this first, which is why the above does not work.

What you will need to do here is set up the SSL for certain pages only:

RewriteCond %{ENV:HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^(login.php?)$ https://yourdomain/$1 [R=301,L,NC]
RewriteCond %{ENV:HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^(create_account.php?)$ https://yourdomain/login.php?form=account$1 [R=301,L,NC]

This is an example of when going to login.php that it will make it go to the SSL, as with create_account.php. You can then use the following code to make sure that the SSL is not used normally:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{ENV:HTTPS} on
RewriteRule .* http://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R,L]

If you have any further questions, I am happy to help.

I haven't done any more with this yet but wanted to add it to the mix to get some thoughts from people.

Thanks