301 redirect

Question

1. How do i redirect a url to domain . eg. http://www.mydomain.com/index.php=HairThing --> http://www.mydomain.com

2. How do i redirect a non-www to www WITHOUT a slash at end ?

eg http://mydomain.com ---> http://www.mydomain.com

Answer 1

See also: Hidden features of mod_rewrite

#1
RewriteRule /index.php=HairThing$ http://www.mydomain.com [R=301]

#2
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mydomain.com 
RewriteRule .*   http://www.mydomain.com [R=301] 

However, example case 1, as said by Greg, will always put the / on if it is without a uri.

mydomain.com  # impossible 
mydomain.com/ # possible
mydomain.com/foo  #possible
mydomain.com/foo/ #possible

Answer 2

For your second question, the browser will always put a slash after the site name. This is because the trailing slash is required to indicate the root path of the web site.

Answer 3

you could use a general rule that works on every domain without having to change the name of the domain all the time. This is very helpful when you have multiple domains parked on same root.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}    !^www\.[a-z0-9-]+\.[a-z]{2,6}   [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}    ([a-z0-9-]+\.[a-z]{2,6})$       [NC]
RewriteRule (.*)            http://www.%1/$1                [L,R=301]