Redirect directive ignored in .htaccess when using URL parameters

Question

I have a default .htaccess file that comes with drupal. In order to redirect externally linked pages from the old website to the new one I usually use statements like

Redirect /foo http://www.example.com/bar

This works as expected.

But the statement is totally ignored when looking like

Redirect /index.php?x=y http://www.example.com

and the request runs through the mod_rewrite rules from Drupal at the end of the .htaccess file.

Do you know what is the problem?

Answer 1

Problem

Redirect does not match URL parameters, it will only match the PATH of a url.

Solution

You CAN match the QueryString variable with RewriteCond and RewriteRule. Here is a working (but untested) snippet that you can try:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} x=y
RewriteRule ^index.php http://www.example.com [R=301]

You should note a few things about this:

1. The RewriteCond line is really a regex (regular expression), so you will have to escape any special characters you add to it (such as punctuation), and the first ? is omitted, but any further URL parameters with have to include the & (RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} x=y&a=b).
2. This method is equvilent to a Redirect, because I specified the HTTP status code (a HTTP 301 Redirect, which is permanent).

Credits

• How can I match query string variables with mod_rewrite? - Stack Overflow