.htaccess – Permanently redirect to root when the website is accessed with mysite.com/index.php with no query string parameters?

I am using a template on my website. This template is designed in a way where everything is in the index.php file but the functions are executed based on the query string which is stick to the index.php file.

I want to permanently redirect to the root mysite.com when my site is accessed with index.php with no query string parameters, but if there is any query string parameter then it should not be redirected and should remain the same.

To achieve this, this is what I added in my .htaccess file, but it affects the query string and the site is unable to be navigated properly.

...
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^.*/index.php 
RewriteRule ^(.*)index.php$ /$1 [R=301,L]
...

Thanks for the help.

Answer

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^.*/index.php 
RewriteRule ^(.*)index.php$ /$1 [R=301,L]

The regex ^.*/index.php matches index.php followed by anything, which naturally includes the query string.

If it’s always index.php in the document root then the above can be further simplified, since there is never going to be anything before /index.php in the URL-path.

Try the following instead:

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} s/index.phps
RewriteRule ^index.php$ / [R=301,L]

Note the space (ie. s) after index.php in the preceding CondPattern to signify the end of the URL.

Test first with a 302 (temporary) redirect to avoid potential caching issues. You will need to clear your browser cache before testing since the erroneous 301 will have been cached.