Support

I'm going to move my website between hosts and at the same time to a new domain. There's a slight complication in that currently the website is in a subdirectory, /pgc, but on the new domain I want it to be in the root directory.

I've practised copying the website to the new domain using Akeeba Backup and making all the necessary changes to get all extensions working properly and eliminated the absolute urls on the current site. I know that when I do the move for real I'll need to use 301 redirects, but am a bit unclear about whether to make them in Admin Tools or edit .htaccess files directly and what form they should take.

Currently, there is an .htaccess file on the domain root that redirects to the /pgc folder, and there are also some redirects from shortened versions of a few important pages:

RewriteEngine On
Redirect 301 /newsletter /pgc/newsletters/weekly-newsletter
Redirect 301 /event /pgc/event
Redirect 301 /events /pgc/whats-on/events
Redirect 301 /subscribe /pgc/subscribe

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?olddomain.org.uk$
RewriteRule ^(/)?$ pgc [L]

When I make the move do I just edit this .htaccess file and if so what is the syntax? The new domain is newdomain.uk.

Do I also need to change the .htaccess file that has been generated by Admin Tools, which is /pgc/.htaccess ? Or will it be bypassed entirely?

I'm sure this is very basic stuff, but try as I can I can't get my head around regular expression!

Regular expressions are not my friend.

The .htaccess file generated by Admin Tools will be restored to the root directory in the new site.  Depending on how the old site is set up, the .htaccess in your current root may not even exist on the new site - it may not be included in the backup.

Any customizations of your .htaccess file should be added to the Custom fields in .htaccess Maker so that any future regeneration does not wipe them out.  The lines where you're forwarding from root to pgc will no longer be required.  The ones where you're changing paths will still be needed.

In .htaccess Maker there are a couple of URLs at the bottom of the screen that may need to be updated.  They may already be right.  Your site thinks it's in the root, the .htaccess in the root folder takes care of the forwarding to pgc.