: Creating a Combined 301 Redirect in .htaccess We are being advised by our SEO agency to reduce the number of "chained" redirects we have. So, for example: URL A - http://www.sitename.co.uk/SHOPPING-CATEGORIES/product_name

@Alves908

If you have access to the VirtualHost config for the site, I think mod_rewrite would to be up to the task (when placed in said <VirtualHost> directive block):

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteMap lc int:tolower

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

RewriteRule [A-Z] ${lc:[CO]} [R=301]
RewriteRule ^(.*)/shopping-categories/(.*)$ /category/ [R=301]
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^/?(.*) %{SERVER_NAME}/ [R=301]
</IfModule>


You may need to restart the Apache service to re-parse the VirtualHost configuration.

The RewriteMap directive maps a "to lowercase" behavior that's packaged with mod_rewrite, and is the only directive which absolutely must be in the <VirtualHost> directive block. All other directives could be placed in a .htaccess file or <Directory> directive block.


RewriteRule [A-Z] ${lc:[CO]} [R=301]: If the requested URI-path contains an uppercase letter, apply the "to lowercase" map against the entire path and set up a permanent redirect.
RewriteRule ^(.*)/shopping-categories/(.*)$ /category/ [R=301]: If the (now most definitely lowercase) URI-path contains "/shopping-categories/", replace it with "/category/" and set up a permanent redirect.
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on: If the request was not made using HTTPS...


RewriteRule ^(.*) %{SERVER_NAME}/ [R=301]: ...rewrite it using the HTTPS schema and set up a permanent redirect.



As no L or END flags are specified, Apache will test all rewrite rules and redirect only once if any rule was applied.



ADDENDUM

The above directives should function equally as well in a server-level configuration (often httpd.conf). However, a VirtualHost block is preferable as it limits the changes to specifically to applicable requests (and thus resource overhead, behavior alterations, etc.). If your dedicated server does not appear to load a <VirtualHost> directive block for your website at any point you can easily implement one, even if you only plan on hosting one website on the server - this is a fairly standard practice and will not introduce any great complexity nor resource overhead to the webserver. Review the Apache documentation on Configuration Files and the VirtualHost examples for more information.

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