In all servers, mod_rewrite module is installed, which, provides a lot of possibilities for URL rewriting. You will need to use the .htaccess file that is located in the public_html directory on the site or in the directory you want to rewrite. If this file does not exist, you can simply create it.

If you are a beginner here is a rookie guide on how to setup a website →

The rule starts working when it is written to the .htaccess file. Here are some of the most popular examples:

Forwarding from http://my-site.com to http://www. my-site.com

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^my-site\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.my-site.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Redirect from the old site to new

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.new-site.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Moving visitors to the main subdomain

E.g. if your website is accessible via the link http://my-site.com/subdomain and link need be http://subdomain.my-site.com

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^subdomain/(.*)$ http://subdomain.my-site.com/$1 [R=301,L]

If necessary, an exception can be made, eg. no change will be made to http://my-site.com/dont-change

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/dont-change
RewriteRule ^subdomain/(.*)$ http://subdomain.my-site.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Redirecting one part of a site

redirect 301 /work/file.html http://www.other-site.com/new/file.html

Redirecting all but one visitors

Useful when a website is still being created and anyone except the developer wants to display one version of the site.

To redirect visitors to the next page:

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST} !^127\.0\.0\.1
RewriteRule (.*) http://another-address.com/$1 [R=301,L]

To display a particular file:

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST} !^127\.0\.0\.1
RewriteRule \.html$ /other-page.html [R=302,L]

To direct visitors to another directory in the same domain (for example, “test”):

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST} !^127\.0\.0\.1
RewriteRule ^((?!test/).*?)/?$ test/$1 [L,NC]

If you need to add multiple IP addresses, they are separated by “|”:

RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST} !^127\.0\.0\.1|^195\.36\.67\.134|^195\.157\.64\.5

Exception

Special rules can be created when redirection does not work. Ex. this rule would stop redirecting if the address to be opened is http://my-site.com/file.txt

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/file.txt [NC]

Achieving a website from a subdirectory

If you want to access the site from level 1 below the directory (subdirectory) (i.e. public_html/test), insert the following code into the .htaccess file in the main directory (public_hml):

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^((?!test/).*?)/?$ test/$1 [L,NC]