: How do I get the root index page to redirect to a subdirectory without affecting SEO? I am reviving/reorganising my personal WordPress blog. It's using a URL that looks like this: http://mydomain.com/blog

@Correia994

You could rewrite URLs internally in your root .htaccess file.

RewriteEngine On
#if request is mydomain.com/something OR
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mydomain.com$ [OR]

# or mydomain.com/something RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.mydomain.com$

# but not mydomain.com/blog
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/blog/
#change it to mydomain.com/blog/something
RewriteRule (.*) /blog/ [R=301]


Or, if you want to apply a temporary solution till you develop the other parts of site, you could place an index.php in the root with this following code:

<?php
Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: www.mydomain.com/blog );
?>


Benefits of this approach is that no present/possible messing up of URLS. And it is simpler than .htaccess approach. Also this will tell Google that this page moved permanently ( or temorary with 302) to this new location. (Although [R=301] in .htaccess would have done same thing.)

Here is a discussion about 301 & 302 redirects by Matt Cutts

Vote Up Vote Down