Forum

I'm posting here 'cause the old thread is closed..

What is 'ultimate' solution for redirecting all non-www requests to www?

I'm trying with:

VirtualHost {
        Hostname = atmarama.net
        WebSiteRoot = /some/path/net
        UseToolkit = redirect_net, wordpress
        StartFile = index.php
        AccessLogFile = /some/path/log/net-access.log
        ErrorLogFile = /some/path/log/net-error.log
        TimeForCGI = 5
        UseFastCGI = PHP5
}

VirtualHost {
        HostName = www.atmarama.net 
        WebSiteRoot = /some/path/net
        UseToolkit = wordpress
        StartFile = index.php
        AccessLogFile = /some/path/log/net-access.log
        ErrorLogFile = /some/path/log/net-error.log
        TimeForCGI = 5
        UseFastCGI = PHP5
}


UrlToolkit {
  ToolkitID = redirect_net
  Match ^/(.*) Redirect http://www.atmarama.net/$1
}

UrlToolkit {
    ToolkitID = wordpress
    RequestURI exists Return
    Match .* Rewrite /index.php
}

Otoh, FAQ entry recommends:

VirtualHost {
    Hostname = www.website.net, *.website.net
    ...
}

but I wonder, due to SEO reasons, whether the above produces correct permanent 301 redirect?


Sincerely,
Gour

p.s. Maybe this topic deserves FAQ entry.

I'm also puzzled a bit by using wigwam to test the above redirect_net rule:

url: http://atmarama.net/index.php
Bad URL: missing leading slash.
old: http://atmarama.net/index.php

Why it reports "Bad URL: missing leading slash." ?

The ultimate solution for me is to simply ignore whether visitors used www or not. Why would you care? And SEO is no reason, because Google and other search engines perfectly know that many sites can be visited with and without the leading www. My advice: let it be.

But, if you still want to redirect to www, you can take a look at this script [github.com].

You can also try to fix your solution: remove ', wordpress' from the UseToolkit setting in the VirtualHost block for atmarama.net. The WordPress rewrite rule is not required there, since you use that virtual host for redirecting only.

The missing leading slash error is because you entered a complete URL. Only the path part is needed.

url: /index.php

>The ultimate solution for me is to simply ignore whether visitors used www or not. Why would you care? And SEO is no reason, because Google and other search engines perfectly know that many sites can be visited with and without the leading www. My advice: let it be.

H...whenever I read about it, the conclusion was always to do 301 redirect either from non-www to www or vice verse (depending on the taste) since otherwise SEO rankings are divided into two.

> But, if you still want to redirect to www, you can take a look at this script.

Thank you.

> You can also try to fix your solution: remove ', wordpress' from the UseToolkit setting in the VirtualHost block for atmarama.net. The WordPress rewrite rule is not required there, since you use that virtual host for redirecting only.

OK. Thank you.

> The missing leading slash error is because you entered a complete URL. Only the path part is needed.

Ahh, OK. But how to test redirect rules then without entering complete URL?

Hiawatha will show you the URL it redirects to. Entering a complete URL would be pointless, since Hiawatha never looks at the complete URL, only the path section of it.

> But, if you still want to redirect to www, you can take a look at this script.

Match ^/(.*) Redirect http://www.atmarama.net/$1

does not work, so I wonder if Hiawatha's URL toolkit can accomplish (without extra scripting) something like the following

$HTTP["host"] =~ "^atmarama\.net$" {
   url.redirect = ( "^/(.*)" => "http://www.atmarama.net/$1" )
}

in lighttpd?

If I understand properly, then it means that the reason the above non-www to www rewrite rule fails due to some other misconfiguraton of Nginx?

The rule works - there was error in DNS entry. :-(

Ok, good to hear it works.