htaccess remove index.php from url

Question

I have a problem whereby google has indexed some pages with the wrong url.

The url they are indexing is:

http://www.example.com/index.php/section1/section2

I need it to redirect to:

http://www.example.com/section1/section2

.htaccess isn't my forte, so any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The original answer is actually correct, but lacks explanation. I would like to add some explanations and modifications.

I suggest reading this short introduction https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/rewrite/intro.html (15mins) and reference these 2 pages while reading.

https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/mod_rewrite.html https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/rewrite/flags.html

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This is the basic rule to hide index.php from the URL. Put this in your root .htaccess file.

mod_rewrite must be enabled with PHP and this will work for the PHP version higher than 5.2.6.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule (.*) /index.php/$1 [L]

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Think %{REQUEST_FILENAME} as the the path after host.

E.g. https://www.example.com/index.html, %{REQUEST_FILENAME} is /index.html

So the last 3 lines means, if it's not a regular file !-f and not a directory !-d, then do the RewriteRule.

As for RewriteRule formats:

So RewriteRule (.*) /index.php/$1 [L] means, if the 2 RewriteCond are satisfied, it (.*) would match everything after the hostname. . matches any single character , .* matches any characters and (.*) makes this a variables can be references with $1, then replace with /index.php/$1. The final effect is to add a preceding index.php to the whole URL path.

E.g. for https://www.example.com/hello, it would produce, https://www.example.com/index.php/hello internally.

Another key problem is that this indeed solve the question. Internally, (I guess) it always need https://www.example.com/index.php/hello, but with rewriting, you could visit the site without index.php, apache adds that for you internally.

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Btw, making an extra .htaccess file is not very recommended by the Apache doc.

Rewriting is typically configured in the main server configuration setting (outside any <Directory> section) or inside <VirtualHost> containers. This is the easiest way to do rewriting and is recommended