Magento SEO /index.php re writes

Step 1) Make a copy of your current .htacess file that is in your website root and put this into the /downloader/ directory. This is needed else Magento connect will have issues when you try and install new extensions.

Step 2) Open the .htaccess file found in your website root and look for this line:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on

Below this add:

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^.*/index.php
RewriteRule ^(.*)index.php$ http://www.your-domain-name.com/$1 [R=301,L]
Redirect 301 /index.html http://www.your-domain-name.com/

Replacing 'your-domain-name.com' with your real domain.

Step 3) Save and test the front end, back end and Magento connect works as expected, If not just remove these changes and re save the file.

Step 4) If its all working as expected you can now head back to http://www.ragepank.com/redirect-check/ and re check your results.

Redirecting index.php to root using .htaccess

Options +FollowSymLinks

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^.*/index.php

RewriteRule
^(.*)index.php$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Removing the index.php from your URL completely

If you would prefer to remove all reference of the index.php in your URL's there are two things you can do.

• Use Web Server Rewrites

Each page in a Magento website is generated starting with the same main PHP script. This file is called index.php and normally resides in the root folder of the website. In order to run this script for each page, each Magento URL typically looks like this:

http://www.domain.com/magento/index.php/storeview/url-identifier

Using a technique called web server rewrites, Magento can hide the file name portion of the URL, making the URL look like this:

http://www.domain.com/magento/storeview/url-identifier

To hide the �index.php� part of the URL is common practice in most PHP-based content management systems. It has no measureable effect on the usability or performance of your website and will not affect your website�s ranking in the search engines.

go to Magento Admin >> System >> Configuration >>Web >> Secure:
Use secure URL Front end: YES

Now go to your magento site root folder and find the .htaccess file.

In this file find:

#RewriteBase /magento

* Note: unquote this line by removing the "#" and rename magento to your magento's root directory OR if your magento is placed in your WWW or public_html directory, then just make it look like this below:

RewriteBase /

Another way you can help create better SEO is to add the following lines into your .htaccess file.

Around line 144 you will see the following:

If you would prefer to remove all reference of the index.php in your URL's there are two things you can do.

• Use Web Server Rewrites

Each page in a Magento website is generated starting with the same main PHP script. This file is called index.php and normally resides in the root folder of the website. In order to run this script for each page, each Magento URL typically looks like this:

http://www.domain.com/magento/index.php/storeview/url-identifier

Using a technique called web server rewrites, Magento can hide the file name portion of the URL, making the URL look like this:

http://www.domain.com/magento/storeview/url-identifier

To hide the �index.php� part of the URL is common practice in most PHP-based content management systems. It has no measureable effect on the usability or performance of your website and will not affect your website�s ranking in the search engines.

go to Magento Admin >> System >> Configuration >>Web >> Secure:
Use secure URL Front end: YES

Now go to your magento site root folder and find the .htaccess file.

In this file find:

#RewriteBase /magento

* Note: unquote this line by removing the "#" and rename magento to your magento's root directory OR if your magento is placed in your WWW or public_html directory, then just make it look like this below:

RewriteBase /

Another way you can help create better SEO is to add the following lines into your .htaccess file.

Around line 144 you will see the following:

############################################
## rewrite everything else to index.php

RewriteRule .* index.php [L]

</IfModule>

############################################
## rewrite everything else to index.php

RewriteRule .* index.php [L]

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^.*/index.php
RewriteRule ^(.*)index.php$ http://www.mydomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{http_host} ^www.mydomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mydomain.com/$1 [R=301,NC]
RewriteRule ^index.php/(.*) $1 [R=301,QSA,L]

</IfModule>

############################################

This 301 redirect all /index.php/ to /

and preventing all use of the index.php

Redirect to WWW and without wwww

The solution is simple. Go to your .htaccess fine and find the line that says

RewriteEngine
on 

If you want to have www part:

RewriteEngine on 

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}
!^www\.yourdomain\.com$ [NC]

RewriteRule
^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

If you don’t want to have www part:

RewriteEngine on 

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}
!^yourdomain\.com$ [NC]

RewriteRule
^(.*)$ http://yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Btw. This is applicable and good to be set to every site, not just Magento ones.