About the HTACCESS Redirect Generator
The .htaccess file controls URL redirects, rewrites, and server behavior for websites hosted on Apache servers, but its mod_rewrite syntax is dense and easy to get wrong — a single misplaced character can break an entire site's URLs. This generator builds correct, ready-to-paste .htaccess redirect rules from a simple form, covering the most common redirect scenarios site owners and developers actually need.
This tool is useful for site owners migrating pages or entire domains and needing to preserve SEO value with proper 301 redirects, developers setting up temporary maintenance redirects with 302, and webmasters standardizing their domain to a single canonical version (www vs non-www, or HTTP vs HTTPS).
To use it, choose a redirect type — single page redirect, whole domain redirect, www to non-www (or vice versa), or force HTTPS — fill in the source and destination URLs, and select 301 (permanent) or 302 (temporary) status where relevant. The tool generates the exact .htaccess code block, ready to paste into your file, along with a short explanation of what it does.
For example, choosing a single page redirect from /old-page.html to /new-page and selecting 301 produces "Redirect 301 /old-page.html https://example.com/new-page" — telling browsers and search engines that the page has permanently moved, which preserves most of the original page's search ranking value when done correctly.
A common and costly mistake is using a 302 (temporary) redirect for what is actually a permanent page move — search engines treat 302 redirects very differently from 301s, and using the wrong type can prevent your new URL from properly inheriting the old page's search rankings. Another frequent issue is redirect loops, which happen when combining multiple rules incorrectly (for example, a www-to-non-www rule and an HTTPS rule that reference each other in a conflicting order) — always test your final .htaccess file in a staging environment before deploying to production.
Tip: place more specific redirect rules before more general ones in your .htaccess file, since Apache processes rules in order and a broad domain-wide rule placed first can prevent more specific page-level rules from ever being reached. Always back up your existing .htaccess file before adding new rules, since a syntax error in this file can take your entire site offline until it's fixed.