posted on Monday, April 10, 2006 7:21 PM
by
PetePrestipino
What is an HTACCESS file and why do I need it?
HTACCESS stands for Hypertext Access. HTACCESS is the default directory level
configuration file for Apache, which allows for custom configurations and
commands.
Common uses for this file are redirects, URL rewriting, and to block access to
certain files.
If you update your website and rename pages, you may want to redirect the search
engine traffic and your visitor’s bookmarks to the correct new page names or
URL’s.
First check the file manager program on your server to see if the .htaccess file
already exists. Many servers hide this file from most FTP (file transfer
protocol) software programs, so that is why I recommend trying the file manager
on the server. If you are not sure, please contact your web hosting company
first because it could cause problems with your Web hosting or other server
software if you overwrite the existing .htaccess file.
Note: The file must be saved as .htaccess. (Not htaccess.txt or htaccess.html)
Here is an example of a 301 permanent redirect from an old page to a new page:
redirect 301 outdatedpage.html http://www.example.com/newpage.html
Here is an example of how to make a redirect to a custom 404 error page, which
is where the visitors are redirected when a page is not found:
ErrorDocument 404 http://www.example.com/404error.html
Here is the most important of all redirects that you may want to consider using
on your website. Many search engines are confused by the difference between the
WWW version and a non-WWW version of a website, and sometimes index both which
may cause duplicate content issues with the search results. Duplicate content
can negatively affect your website’s search engine placement in the search
results.
The following example will force a 301 redirect from the non-WWW version of your
website to the WWW version of your website.
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]
Try visiting both http://www.fenclwebdesign.com and http://fenclwebdesign.com to
test this redirect and see it in action. As you will see both links take you to
the WWW version of the website.
Bret Fencl, Fencl Web Design.Com, LLC