Redirecting index.html to /

Issue Description

Launching Stuart Wright we came across the issue where this line in htaccess

Redirect 301 /index.html https://www.stuartwrightfunerals.co.uk/

Was causing a redirect loop.

How to Fix the Issue

The reason why you are getting the infinity loop is that the your apache is tring to deliver the content of the file /index.htm when you accessing the root directory / because it’s part of the directory index list. Now your redirection takes effect (because you virtual accessing the page /index.htm) and the procedure starts from the beginning.

To solve your problem you should use a rewrite rule instead of a redirection. The rewrite rule only affects to the requested URL and doesn’t end in an infinity loop. The following rule should work in your case:

Fixed Code Snippets

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \s/index\.htm
RewriteRule ^index.htm$ / [R=301,L]

References