HOWTO use Applicaton to redirect (or remove) 'www' access

filipesaraiva

I prefer my users access my websites using example.com address instead www.example.com. So, I created an application to redirect (or remove) the www access and I am sharing here how to do it:

Create an PHP+Apache application in control panel;

Put the follow rule in the .htaccessfile in the app folder:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.+)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%1/$1 [R=301,L]

Create a Site Route in control panel pointing to the application created and register all your www domains there.
Create a Let's Encrypt certificate for this route and check the Redirect to HTTPS option. So, all access to http://www.example.com and https://www.example.com will be redirected to https://example.com address.
Create a Let's Encrypt certificate for all your Site Routes where example.com was registered. 🙂

cworrell

filipesaraiva since you're creating a separate app for the www versions, you can use a simple redirect if you like.

Redirect 301 / https://domain.com/

cbiweb

filipesaraiva I'm slightly unsure how to proceed with making an application for www.

I have a non-www application with the name of my site.
To make a www version, I cannot create another app with the same name, naturally.
I also cannot create one called www.mysite, because I'm not allowed to use the dot ( . ) in an app name.
So if I create wwwmysite, does the system know that it's supposed to be www.mysite?

sean

junggle

You DO need to create the www subdomains for each domain.
You DO NOT need to create a separate site for each redirect. If you're using filipesaraiva's example then you can add all of the www subdomains to a single site that serves the remove_www app. The rewrite rules in the example are written so that the apex domain will be extracted from the www subdomain and the site will be redirected correctly.

sean

cbiweb the name of your application does not matter. All that matters is that you assign the app to the site route as described by the OP.

filipesaraiva

cbiweb as sean pointed, you can create any name to your application.

Just as an example, for my case I created remove-www and registered all my www.* domains there. 🙂

junggle

filipesaraiva Can I do it with a single site rule www.* > * OR I need to create an extra site for each? Thanks

filipesaraiva

junggle just a single site. You can put all your www.* domains there.

junggle

I understand that I only need to create a single universal APP (remove_www) and route all www.* domains there. But I still need to create an extra www.* DOMAIN for EACH site separately and extra www_ SITE for EACH site separately to route them to the remove_www APP. Is this correct? Thank you very much.