Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. How Can I Redirect an Old Domain to Our New Domain in .htaccess?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    How Can I Redirect an Old Domain to Our New Domain in .htaccess?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    2
    4
    5111
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • smpomoryCRH
      smpomoryCRH last edited by

      There is an old version of http://chesapeakeregional.com still floating around the web here: http://www.dev3.com.php53-24.dfw1-2.websitetestlink.com/component/content/category/20-our-services. Various iterations of this domain pop up when I do certain site:searches and for some queries as well (such as "Diagnostic Center of Chesapeake").

      About 3 months ago the websitetestlink site had files and a fully functional navigation but now it mostly returns 404 or 500 errors. I'd like to redirect the site to our newer site, but don't believe I can do that in chesapeakeregional.com's .htaccess file. Is that so and would I need access to the websitetestlink .htaccess to forward the domain?

      Note* I (nor anyone else in our organization) has the login for the old site. The new site went live about 9 months before I arrived at the organization and I've been slowly putting the pieces together since arriving.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • brettmandoes
        brettmandoes last edited by

        Sorry Sean, I misunderstood your question. No, you cannot redirect any website you don't have access to. My recommendation would be to contact the host and work with them to obtain access. It's usually not a complex process.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • smpomoryCRH
          smpomoryCRH @brettmandoes last edited by

          Hi Brett,

          I've tried the above and previously found the InMotion Hosting resource. I'm able to redirect pages on chesapeakeregional.com just fine. I believe I cannot do the above in the ches reg .htacess because the site I want to redirect from is a different domain. If I could, there wouldn't be anything to stop anyone from redirecting, say facebook.com, to their own website...unless I'm misunderstanding something.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • brettmandoes
            brettmandoes last edited by

            There are several resources around the net that show how to do this. Here's a code snippet provided by http://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/website/redirects/setting-up-a-301-permanent-redirect-via-htaccess

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

            If this doesn't work for you, here are some other resources:
            https://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/blog/search-engine-optimization/301-redirects/
            https://css-tricks.com/snippets/htaccess/301-redirects/
            http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/how-to-properly-implement-a-301-redirect/

            The first code example is more canonical friendly. The simple version I see used a lot and recommended in the other resources I've provided looks like this:

            RedirectMatch 301 ^(.*)$ http://www.xyz.com
            
            
            smpomoryCRH 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • 1 / 1
            • First post
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            Browse Questions

            Explore more categories

            • Moz Tools

              Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

            • SEO Tactics

              Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

            • Community

              Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

            • Digital Marketing

              Chat about tactics outside of SEO

            • Research & Trends

              Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

            • Support

              Connect on product support and feature requests.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • joshibhargav_20

              Using a Reverse Proxy and 301 redirect to appear Sub Domain as Sub Directory - what are the SEO Risks?

              We’re in process to move WordPress blog URLs from subdomains to sub-directory. We aren’t moving blog physically, but using reverse proxy and 301 redirection to do this. Blog subdomain URL is https://blog.example.com/ and destination sub-directory URL is https://www.example.com/blog/ Our main website is e-commerce marketplace which is YMYL site. This is on Windows server. Due to technical reasons, we can’t physically move our WordPress blog to the main website. Following is our Technical Setup Setup a reverse proxy at https://www.example.com/blog/ pointing to https://blog.example.com/ Use a 301 redirection from https://blog.example.com/ to https://www.example.com/blog/ with an exception if a traffic is coming from main WWW domain then it won’t redirect. Thus, we can eliminate infinite loop. Change all absolute URLs to relative URLs on blog Change the sitemap URL from https://blog.example.com/sitemap.xml to https://www.example.com/blog/sitemap.xml and update all URLs mentioned within the sitemap. SEO Risk Evaluation We have individual GA Tracking ID and individual Google Search Console Properties for main website and blog. We will not merge them. Keep them separate as they are. Keeping this in mind, I am evaluating SEO Risks factors Right now when we receive traffic from main website to blog (or vice versa) then it is considered as referral traffic and new cookies are set for Google Analytics. What’s going to happen when its on the same domain? Which type of settings change should I do in Blog’s Google Search Console? (A). Do I need to request “Change of Address” in the Blog’s search console property? (B). Should I re-submit the sitemap? Do I need to re-submit the blog sitemap from the https://www.example.com/ Google Search Console Property? Main website is e-commerce marketplace which is YMYL website, and blog is all about content. So does that impact SEO? Will this dilute SEO link juice or impact on the main website ranking because following are the key SEO Metrices. (A). Main website’s Avg Session Duration is about 10 minutes and bounce rate is around 30% (B). Blog’s Avg Session Duration is 33 seconds and bounce rate is over 92%

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | joshibhargav_20
              0
            • Virginia-Girtz

              Why does my old brand name still show up on organic search but as my new brand name and domain?

              Hello mozers! I have quite the conundrum. My client used to have the unfortunate brand name "Meetoo" - which by the way they had before the movement happened! So naturally, they rebranded to the name Vevox in March 2019 to avoid confusion to users. However, when you search for their old brand name "Meetoo" the first organic link that pops up is their domain www.vevox.com. Now, this wouldn't normally be a problem, however it is when any #MeToo news appears in the media and we get a sudden influx or wrong traffic. I've searched the HTML and content for the term "Meetoo" but can only find one trace of this name through a widget. Not enough to hold an organic spot. My only other thinking is that www.vevox.com is redirected from www.meetoo.com. So I'm assuming this is why Vevox appear under the search term "Meetoo". How can I remove the homepage www.vevox.com from appearing for the search term "meetoo"? Can anyone help? AvGGYBc

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Virginia-Girtz
              3
            • amag

              Would You Redirect a Page if the Parent Page was Redirected?

              Hi everyone! Let's use this as an example URL: https://www.example.com/marvel/avengers/hulk/ We have done a 301 redirect for the "Avengers" page to another page on the site. Sibling pages of the "Hulk" page live off "marvel" now (ex: /marvel/thor/ and /marvel/iron-man/). Is there any benefit in doing a 301 for the "Hulk" page to live at /marvel/hulk/ like it's sibling pages? Is there any harm long-term in leaving the "Hulk" page under a permanently redirected page? Thank you! Matt

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | amag
              0
            • Virginia-Girtz

              How can I avoid duplicate content for a new landing page which is the same as an old one?

              Hello mozers! I have a question about duplicate content for you... One on my clients pages have been dropping in search volume for a while now, and I've discovered it's because the search term isn't as popular as it used to be. So... we need to create a new landing page using a more popular search term. The page which is losing traffic is based on the search query "Can I put a solid roof on my conservatory" this only gets 0-10 searches per month according to the keyword explorer tool. However, if we changed this to "replacing conservatory roof with solid roof" this gets up to 500 searches per month. Muuuuch better! The issue is, I don't want to close down and re-direct the old page because it's got a featured snippet and sits in position 1. So I'd like to create another page instead... however, as the two are effectively the same content, I would then land myself in a duplicate content issue. If I were to put a rel="canonical" tag in the original "can I put a solid roof...." page but say the master page is now the new one, would that get around the issue?

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Virginia-Girtz
              0
            • MJTrevens

              Can some sort of wildcard redirect be used on a single folder path?

              We have a directory with thousands of pages and we are migrating the entire site to another root URL. These folder paths will not change on the new site, but we don't want to use a wildcard to redirect EVERYTHING to the same folder path on the new site. Setting up manual 301 redirects on this particular directory would be crazy. Is there a way to isolate something like a wildcard redirect to apply only to a specific folder? Thanks!

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MJTrevens
              0
            • dbaxa-261338

              Consolidating Multiple Domains into A Single Domain

              I have a client who's website is an amalgamation of multiple domains. jacksonhole.net is the main domain but the site passes traffic back and forth from the following domains/sites. My questions is, would it it be better for SEO to consolidate all of these domains under the single high authority domain and 301 redirect the rest or is that a really bad idea?  Thanks for your help. jacksonhole.net (Domain Authority 31) jackson-hole-rental-condos.com (Domain Authority 22) jackson-hole-rental-homes.com (Domain Authority 21) j acksonholehotelguide.com (Domain Authority 19)

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dbaxa-261338
              1
            • Locals

              Primary Domain or Redirect?

              We are starting a new travel guide for a resort town. I have bought an expired domain with decent related links and PR (which seems to have survived the transfer (4 months ago). Beofre we launch the new site I am trying to decide if we should use this expired domain as the primary URL for the new site or just do a permanent redirect and buy a new domain that better matches the theme of the site. I am obviously concerned with starting from scatch with a new domain. I am confident we can build some good rellevant links in a short time but this space is very competetive. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Locals
              0
            • djingel1

              Any way to find which domains are 301 redirected to competitors' websites?

              By looking at the work from an SEO collegue it became clear that his weak linkbuilding graph probably is not the cause for his good rankings for a pretty competitive keyword. (also no social mentions where found) I was wondering what it could be, site structure and other on page optimization factors seems to be ok and I don't think there will be exceptionally good or bad user behavior... Finally I looked at the competitors and found that they have more links, better content en better design, so I got a little stuck. The only reason I can think of is that he is doing 301 redirects (or is rel=canonical tags). Is there a way to trace these redirects back to the source in order to include this important variable in your competitor research? thnx

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | djingel1
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            • Digital Marketers
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.