Replacing ? with # in url to avoid cache busting - .htaccess

I discovered the UTM variables for Google Analytics bust our page caching. Google Analytics allows using hash instead of question mark, so
http://www.example.com/?utm_source=source&utm_medium=medium
and
http://www.example.com/#utm_source=source&utm_medium=medium
Are actually the same. But, as I said, the first option busts our caching while the second does not.
When we generate our own links, then I use #. However, services like Feedburner or dlvr.it append the UTM campaign variables with a ? -- so I want in .htaccess to redirect all /?utm... to /#utm...
I know that NE (No Escape) should be used for the hash, but I honestly can't figure out how the rewrite condition and rule should be like.
The rule logic should be -
RewriteCond: if {path}?{query_string} AND {query_string} has 'utm_source' as a variable,
RewriteRule: redirect to {path}#{query_string} [R,NE,L]
Can anyone help me with this place?

OK, I got a eureka shortly after asking the question...
The solution is:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} utm_source
RewriteRule ^ %{REQUEST_URI}#%{QUERY_STRING}? [R,NE,L]
</IfModule>
Tested and works...

Related

I am not able 301 redirect domain.tld/?cur=usd to domain.tld

I try to redirect domain.tld/?cur=usd to domain.tld (there are many curencies, this is only example of one currency - we do not use anymore this solution).
I need to redirect only home with parameter to home without parameter. The other urls worked for me, I'm just having trouble getting work with that one.
I try to search and use online generators but none of the solutions work.
Here is what I am trying:
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (^|&)cur\=(.*)($|&)
RewriteRule ^$ /? [L,R=301]
// update
before this rule I have only
#bof redirects
RewriteEngine enabled
...and then there are redirects for other URLs, but I tested this rule separately first and the result was the same...
It not redirect me.
Thanks for the help and maybe an explanation of what I'm doing wrong.
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (^|&)cur\=(.*)($|&)
RewriteRule ^$ /? [L,R=301]
As mentioned in comments, this should already do as you require, providing there are no conflicts with other directives in the .htaccess file.
However, the regex in the preceding condition is excessively verbose for what you are trying to achieve (ie. just testing for the presence of the cur URL parameter).
If you simply want to check for the cur URL parameter anywhere in the query string then the regex (^|&)cur= would suffice (and is more efficient). No need to backslash-escape the literal =. And if the URL parameter always appears at the start of the query string then just use ^cur=.
I found the problem - it was something with the hosting, after a reboot everything started working as expected.
So I can confirm that this rule is fine.
Sorry for question.

Htaccess - Detecting the URL

For my family members I was giving each person their own subdomain
(sister1.mydomain.com, sister2.mydomain.com, etc...)
I was using PHP to detect the domain, and then I'd load information related to the subdomain dynamically.
I'd like to get rid of the subdomains and use the power of .htaccess
My goal is to give the same URL:
www.mydomain.com/sister1
www.mydomain.com/sister2
www.mydomain.com/mommy
www.mydomain.com/daddyo
Obviously, I don't plan to have literal working directories for each person.
I'd pass the "sister1" portion to a process.php script that takes care of the rest.
I've figure out how to do it by manually typing each RewriteRule in my htaccess file:
Options +FollowSymLinks
AddDefaultCharset UTF-8
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^/?sister1$ process.php?entity=sister1 [L]
RewriteRule ^/?sister2$ process.php?entity=sister2[L]
RewriteRule ^/?mommy$ process.php?entity=mommy[L]
RewriteRule ^/?daddyo$ process.php?entity=daddyo[L]
I feel this is the long way of doing it.
Is there a more universal way of extracting the text after the first "/" forwardslash, and passing it to process.php?entity=$1 ?
I tried it this way:
RewriteRule ^/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ process.php?entity=$1 [NC,L]
I'm getting the apache 404 error: "Not Found".
It is because you have a mandatory / in the beginning of your rule, i.e., you are always looking for something like /sibling in the URL. Your first examples have that first forward slash as optional due to the question mark after it.
You do not need a beginning forward slash - normally the rewrite rule picks up stuff after the domain name
www.example.com/string/mod/rewrite/gets/is.here
So just remove the starting slash and it should work.

erase part of a URL using htaccess rewrite

i need to remove part of Joomla/Virtuemart generated SEF URI using .htaccess
the URI represents a menu hierarchy and structured this way:
online-store
- inner-store
-product-catalog
this is the resulting URI:
www.domain.com/online-store/inner-store/product-catalog
i would like to change it to:
www.domain.com/online-store/product-catalog
thought this might help but its not making any difference
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^online-store/inner-store/\d+-(.+) /online-store/$1 [R=301,L]
i know its not considered good practice but i can't change the menu structure.
any suggestions ?
This regex \d+-(.+) will match 1 or more digits followed by hyphen followed 1 or more any thing
Try this code instead:
RewriteRule ^(online-store)/inner-store/(.*)$ /$1/$2 [R=301,L,NC]
Make sure this is first rule in your .htaccess and use a different browser to test it to avoid caching issues.

Stop mod_rewrite returning REQUEST_URI when (.*) is empty

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^mocks/site/(.*)$ http://thelivewebsite.com/$1 [R=301,L]
That is my htaccess file's contents.
The htaccess file is in the root directory of the hosting account and I just want to redirect the directory mocks/site/ to the new domain (with or without any extra directories).
eg: if someone goes to http://mywebsite.com/mocks/site then it needs to redirect to http://thelivewebsite.com. If they go to http://mywebsite.com/mocks/site/another/directory then it needs to redirect to http://thelivewebsite.com/another/directory. I hope that makes sense.
So the problem I have is that the htaccess code above seems to work pretty well when there is something after mocks/site/ however when there isn't something after that then the $1 in the redirect seems to reference the whole REQUEST_URI (eg: mocks/site/ rather than nothing - as there is nothing after it).
I don't know how to stop this. I thought about using a RewriteCond, but I'm not sure what to use there. I can't find anything that helps me to determine if there is anything after mocks/site/ or not.
Any help will be much appreciated.
Thank you.
That's very strange behaviour -- never seen anything like that. Therefore I think it could be something else (another rule somewhere -- on old or even new site). I recommend enabling rewrite debugging (RewriteLogLevel 9) and check the rewrite log (that's if you can edit Apache's config file / virtual host definition).
In any case, try this combination:
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^mocks/site/$ http://thelivewebsite.com/ [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^mocks/site/(.+)$ http://thelivewebsite.com/$1 [R=301,L]
It will do matching/redirecting in 2 steps: first rule is for exact directory match (so no $1 involved at all) and 2nd will work if there is at least 1 character after the /mocks/site/.
Alternatively (Apache docs even recommending this one) use Redirect directive (no need for mod_rewrite at all for such simple redirects):
Redirect 301 /mocks/site/ http://thelivewebsite.com/

Simple url rewrite

I'm trying to rewrite part of an url as I've changed a CMS and still want Google to find my articles.
I have:
www.mywebsite.com/vision
www.mywebsite.com/vision/40/some-article-name
and want to rename them:
www.mywebsite.com/news
www.mywebsite.com/news/40/some-article-name
Any hints as to the re-write rules or where I can look? I'd like to change the rules in my .htaccess file.
# Activate Rewrite Engine
RewriteEngine On
# redirect /vision to /news
RewriteRule ^vision$ http://www.mywebsite.com/news [R=301,NC]
# redirect /vision/bla-bla to /news/bla-bla
RewriteRule ^vision/(.*)$ http://www.mywebsite.com/news/$1 [R=301,NC,QSA]
In theory (and practically) these 2 rewrite rules can be combined, but then if you have URL that starts with "vision" (like this, for example: /visions/hurray) then such rule may redirect wrong URLs. Therefore I have done it via 2 rules which is much safer.
Try: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_rewrite.html
or: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_substitute.html if you want to change links in the html content returned to the browser.
Here is an example of how I might do the rewrite I think you're after...
RewriteRule ^(.)/vision/(.)$ $1/news/$2
This may be to broad of a rewrite scope in which case this may be better...
RewriteRule http://www.mywebsite.com/vision/(.*)$ http://www.mywebsite.com/news/$1
Also learning the basics of regex will be a needed skill for doing any complex rewriting IMO.
Hope that helps.

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