How to Ensure www Redirects to Non-www with HTTPS on Your Website

Learn how to set up your .htaccess file for a seamless redirection from `www` to non-`www` and secure HTTPS for your website.
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This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/66106222/ asked by the user 'Debabratta Jena' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/1355316/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/66111644/ provided by the user 'RavinderSingh13' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/5866580/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

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How to Ensure www Redirects to Non-www with HTTPS on Your Website

Redirecting web traffic to a single, preferred URL format—whether that's https://example.com or https://www.example.com—is crucial for maintaining a clean and user-friendly web presence. However, many website owners encounter a common issue: when typing https://www.example.com, the website does not redirect to the desired https://example.com. In this guide, we will explore how to configure your .htaccess file to achieve just that, ensuring that all traffic, regardless of the URL form used, redirects to the correct HTTPS version without the www prefix.

Understanding the Problem

When users access your website, it's essential that they arrive at the same version of your site, whether they type in the www version or not. For example:

https://example.com should work seamlessly.

https://www.example.com should automatically redirect to https://example.com.

If the redirect isn’t set up properly, you risk splitting your traffic between two versions of your site, which can cause issues such as duplicate content and SEO penalties.

Optimizing Your .htaccess File

The solution to the redirect problem lies in configuring your .htaccess file correctly. This file is a powerful configuration file used by the Apache web server. Here is a recommended set of rules that ensures any request—regardless of whether it starts with http, https, www, or no www—will redirect appropriately:

Step-by-Step Guide to Configure Redirects

Access Your .htaccess File: Log into your web server and locate the .htaccess file in the root directory of your website. If you don't have one, you can create a new file named .htaccess.

Add the Rewrite Rules: Copy and paste the following code into your .htaccess file. Make sure this code is at the top of your file:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Clear Your Browser Cache: After saving the changes to your .htaccess file, clear your browser cache to ensure that you can test the redirect from a clean slate.

Breakdown of the Code

RewriteEngine On: This line enables the use of rewrite rules in the .htaccess file.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(?:www.)?(.*) [NC]: This condition captures the HTTP host whether it includes www or not. The [NC] flag makes it case insensitive.

RewriteRule ^ https://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [NE,R=301,L]: This line will redirect all requests to the HTTPS version without www. The [NE] flag ensures that no special characters are escaped, R=301 signifies that this is a permanent redirect, and L indicates that this is the last rule to process if this rule matches.

What This Achieves

The provided rewrite rule will ensure that:

If a user tries to access http://www.example.com, they will be redirected to https://example.com.

If a user uses https://www.example.com, they will also be redirected to https://example.com.

It ensures consistency in URL format and helps in avoiding potential SEO issues due to duplicate content.

Conclusion

Correctly setting up your .htaccess file to handle redirects is essential for creating a user-friendly experience and maintaining your site's SEO rankings. By following the steps outlined above, you can ensure that all of your visitors are directed to the right place, regardless of how they enter the URL.

In the ever-evolving digital landscape, redirecting traffic efficiently is not just a technical update; it's a best practice that reflects your attention to detail and commitment to user experience. Implement these changes today and give your website the seamless navigation it deserves.

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