CODEWITHSUNDEEP
wordpress.htaccesshttp-redirectsubdomain
Michael
Michael

Reputation: 9

Using .htaccess to wildcard rewrite /folder to sub. without showing folder URL

I'm running a WordPress site with the permalink structure as domain.com/%category%/%postname%/.

I want to allow the following: category.domain.com/postname

Without using a wildcard redirect (visitor can access and will only see category.domain.com/postname NOT domain.com/category/postname).

Here's my failed .htaccess:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.mydomain\.com/category$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^.mydomain\.com/category$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://category.mydomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

I tried setting up a subdomain called 'category1' and wildcard redirect to 'mydomain.com/category' and while this works with category1.mydomain.com/postname pointing to mydomain.com/category/postname, the latter URL is displayed.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 200

Answers (1)

arkascha
arkascha

Reputation: 42925

I'd say it is this combination of redirection and rewriting that you are looking for: 

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com$
RewriteRule ^/?category/(.*)/?$ https://category.example.com/$1 [R=301,QSA]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^category\.example\.com$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/category/
RewriteRule ^/?(.*)/?$ /category/$1 [END,QSA]

It is a good idea to start out with a 302 temporary redirection and only change that to a 301 permanent redirection later, once you are certain everything is correctly set up. That prevents caching issues while trying things out...

In case you receive an internal server error (http status 500) using the rule above then chances are that you operate a very old version of the apache http server. You will see a definite hint to an unsupported [END] flag in your http servers error log file in that case. You can either try to upgrade or use the older [L] flag, it probably will work the same in this situation, though that depends a bit on your setup.

This implementation will work likewise in the http servers host configuration or inside a dynamic configuration file (".htaccess" file). Obviously the rewriting module needs to be loaded inside the http server and enabled in the http host. In case you use a dynamic configuration file you need to take care that it's interpretation is enabled at all in the host configuration and that it is located in the host's DOCUMENT_ROOT folder.

And a general remark: you should always prefer to place such rules in the http servers host configuration instead of using dynamic configuration files (".htaccess"). Those dynamic configuration files add complexity, are often a cause of unexpected behavior, hard to debug and they really slow down the http server. They are only provided as a last option for situations where you do not have access to the real http servers host configuration (read: really cheap service providers) or for applications insisting on writing their own rules (which is an obvious security nightmare).

Upvotes: 0

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