htaccess Files Best Practice Guide With Examples and Functions

RewriteEngine On
#-----------------------------------------

# Redirect Entire two Site to New Domain
#-----------------------------------------

# 1.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^olddomain.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^another.olddomain.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

# 2.

LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^localhost$ [NC]
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
</IfModule>

# Redirect Entire Site to New Domain
#-----------------------------------------
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^old.domain.com$
RewriteRule ^/?$ "http\:\/\/new\.domain\.com\/" [R=301,L

# Redirect Entire Site to New Site
#-----------------------------------------

Redirect 301 / http://www.new-domain.com
Redirect 301 /old-page-name http://www.your-domain.com/new-page-name

# 301 Redirect Based on IP Address:
#-----------------------------------------

RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^(A\.B\.C\.D)$
RewriteRule ^/* http://www.yourdomain.com/access-denied.html [L]

# Non-www to www Redirect
# This is a very common function for redirecting your site
# at the top level. Sometimes a site can be accessed at
# http://domain.com/ and http://www.domain.com/ which can
# cause duplication and site management issues.
#-----------------------------------------
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]

# Clean up URLs to remove file extensions
# If you wanted to make your URLs look a little nicer by
# removing the file extension from the end of it you can
# use the function below. In order for this to work
# internally to the site you should also ensure that all
# the linking within the site has the extension manually
# removed.
#-----------------------------------------
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.html -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html

# Restrict access
# To add an element of security to the .htaccess file you
# should add the following function. It will deny access
# to anyone attempting to get to the file externally to
# view or change it. For example, if you were to add this
# to your file and then attempt to access it at
# http://www.domain.com/.htaccess you will be presented
# with a 403 forbidden error. This means its working!
#-----------------------------------------
<Files .htaccess>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</Files>

How to redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS using an .htaccess file

The below code when added to an .htaccess file will automatically redirect any traffic destined for http: to https:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R,L]