ReWriteEngine code to standardize on www URLs in apache

ReWriteEngine code to standardize on www URLs in apache

If you want to redirect all requests to your site to the www version, [www.mysite.com] all you need to do is add the following code to your .htaccess file:

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

This will redirect any requests to http://mysite.com to http://www.mysite.com. There are several benefits from doing that:

  • It will avoid duplication in Google index caches because your site appears twice, once with the "www." and again without it.
  • Reliability of search indexing.
  • It's nicer, and more consistent.