Redirect all pages to non www and one page to www

Question

I want to redirect all my internal pages (eg: example.com/about) to their non-www version but I want my homepage (https://example.com) to redirect to its www version (https://www.example.com).

I searched many articles on the internet but it could not work.

If set both rules then the internal pages get redirected fine but the homepage gets trapped in a loop.

I don't know how to code so please it's a request if you could write the code which I should paste in my .htaccess file

Currently, I have set all pages to redirect to their non-www versions (even homepage) with the below code:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://example.com/$1 [L,R=301]
</IfModule>
# BEGIN Sitepad
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END Sitepad

Answer 1

I searched many articles on the internet but it could not work.

Probably because this is a strange requirement. I would be surprised if you could find any code that you could simply copy/paste that does this.

However, assuming you are constructing the correct absolute URL for all your internal links (since you must not internally link to a URL that redirects) then this is relatively trivial to implement in .htaccess if you understand your existing directives.

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

The regex .* in the RewriteRule pattern matches everything. Specifically, it matches 0 or more of any character, as denoted by the * quantifier. It matches the empty URL-path (ie. the "homepage") and every non-empty URL-path (ie. everything else).

You need to alter the above regex so that it matches a non-empty URL-path (ie. everything except the homepage). And create another rule (in the other direction) that matches an empty URL-path only.

(This uses the fact that mod_dir is serving index.php for requests to the homepage, not the mod_rewrite directives that follow.)

To match 1 or more (ie. non-empty URL-path), you can use the + (plus) quantifier, instead of * (star/asterisk).

For example:

# Redirect everything except the homepage (from www to non-www)
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ https://example.com/$1 [L,R=301]

# Redirect the homepage only (from non-www to www)
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^$ https://www.example.com/ [L,R=301]

You will need to clear your browser cache before testing, since the earlier 301 (permanent) redirect that redirected the homepage from www to non-www will have been cached by the browser.

Test first with 302 (temporary) redirects to avoid potential caching issues.