301 Redirect and htaccess problem

[thindenim]

I'm currently in the final stages of a redevelopment of our girlznight web site. The structure of the site has changed slightly and consequently, quite a number of the URLs have changed.

I have added the following redirect rule for one of our products to the main htaccess file. NB, boys-talk.co.uk is just the domain I am using to test before going live: -

redirect 301 /shop/beauty/skintruth-face/skintruth-nourishing-cleanser.html http://www.boys-talk.co.uk/shop/skin...-cleanser.html

There is a rewrite rule used for the product urls, which is: -

RewriteRule ^shop/(.*)/(.*).html index.php?init=viewproduct&did=$1&pid=$2&menu=shop

So, in theory http://www.boys-talk.co.uk/shop/beau...-cleanser.html

should redirect to

http://www.boys-talk.co.uk/shop/beau...-cleanser.html

However, if you try to go to the first url, it directs you to http://www.boys-talk.co.uk/shop/skin...nser&menu=shop

which is the new url, with a query string (which seems to be derived from the old redirected url) whacked on the end.

Sorry to be a little long winded with the description, but it's hard to explain any other way.

Can anyone shed any light on this... it's driving me crazy!

Thanks in advance.

[thindenim]

Got it (I think) with 2 more Rewrite rules as opposed to the 301 rule: -

RewriteRule ^shop/(.*)/(.*)/(.*).html$ http://www.boys-talk.co.uk/shop/$1/$3.html [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^shop/beauty/(.*).html$ http://www.boys-talk.co.uk/shop/skin/$1.html [R=301,L]

Would be grateful if someone could confirm that this would be search engine friendly. Many thanks.

[incrediblehelp]

Here is the header response I get:

#1 Server Response: http://www.boys-talk.co.uk/shop/beau...-cleanser.html
HTTP Status Code: HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 20:36:00 GMT
Server: Apache 3
Location: http://www.girlznight.co.uk/shop/bea...-cleanser.html
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
Redirect Target: http://www.girlznight.co.uk/shop/bea...-cleanser.html

#2 Server Response: http://www.girlznight.co.uk/shop/bea...-cleanser.html
HTTP Status Code: HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 20:36:01 GMT
Server: Apache 3
Location: http://www.girlznight.co.uk/shop/ski...-cleanser.html
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
Redirect Target: http://www.girlznight.co.uk/shop/ski...-cleanser.html

#3 Server Response: http://www.girlznight.co.uk/shop/ski...-cleanser.html
HTTP Status Code: HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 20:36:01 GMT
Server: Apache 3
Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
Pragma: no-cache
X-Powered-By: PHP/4.4.4
Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=f9fc4fdd6b1f53a5d68bb58712034890; path=/
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html

is that what you want to happen?

[thindenim]

Would probably be better doing it all in one step, however, would have to do it without the regular expressions and set up a rule for every page (500 or so). Will the 2 301 redirects in a row be accepted?

The page it ends up at is the correct one.

Edit: The site is now live actually, so girlznight.co.uk is correct, ignore the boys-talk.co.uk

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by thindenim

Will the 2 301 redirects in a row be accepted?

I have never had an issue with them, they are just rare for me.

[thindenim]

Thanks for the help... now trying to turn the layout into standards compliant css/xhtml and ditch the tables /:-(