Today, I decided that I needed to move my website, a WordPress, installation to a different location. Since I was going to move and migrate my entire website, I figured I might as well choose an ideal location.
Being hosted on Bluehost meant that my primary domain resided in the root folder. Any add-on domains were in their own sub folders or sub directories inside the root or public_html. The downside to this is it keeps all the files to my primary domain unorganized in the root folder.
In order to have it organized, I wanted to have my primary domain folder reside in its own sub folder or sub directory. I am not as comfortable in the server environment as my knowledge of working with the .htaccess file is limited.
I searched Bluehost knowledgebase as well as other sources and finally came up with a solution that would work. It required modifying the .htaccess file. You needed to redirect any traffic hitting your domain name to the sub folder directory.
The code is as follows:
# Bluehost.com
# .htaccess main domain to subdirectory redirect
# Copy and paste the following code into the .htaccess file
# in the public_html folder of your hosting account
# make the changes to the file according to the instructions.
# Do not change this line.
RewriteEngine on
# Change yourdomain.com to be your main domain.
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?yourmaindomain.com$
# Change 'subdirectory' to be the directory you will use for your main domain.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/subdirectory/
# Don't change this line.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
# Change 'subdirectory' to be the directory you will use for your main domain.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /subdirectory/$1
# Change yourdomain.com to be your main domain again.
# Change 'subdirectory' to be the directory you will use for your main domain
# followed by / then the main file for your site, index.php, index.html, etc.
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?yourmaindomain.com$
RewriteRule ^(/)?$ subdirectory/index.php [L]
Once that was accomplished, I was able to have my files in a sub folder directory organized like the other add-on domains.
As a side note, since my website is using WordPress, it took a bit more delicate effort to get it working structurally. One of the problems I had after the redirection to my .htaccess file is that WordPress kept rewriting my .htaccess file rendering the redirection code above useless whenever I updated the Permalink structure.
After hours of testing and trying to figure it out, I found my problem. The solution is to make sure that once you have done the redirect code to your root .htaccess file, the WordPress Address (URI) and Blog Address (URI) both need to match.
For example, even though, my domain is http://yourdomain.com but the WordPress installation is located at http://yourdomain.com/subfolder, both WordPress Address and Blog Address URI’s need to point to the path of http://yourdomain.com. I made the mistake of pointing my WordPress Address to http://yourdomain.com/subfolder causing a loop or an Internal 500 Server error.
Here are some additional resources for you if you are on Bluehost and also about to do what I just did. This can save you lots of time, like 4 hours worth.
Nice! Very useful!
I didn’t run into a problem with the .htaccess being rewritten but I had to put the original .htaccess in the directory where I put my WordPress install. Concatenating the two files didn’t seem to work. So, move all the relevant files to a directory, including the .htaccess file from WordPress. Create a new .htaccess in your root directory, adding the necessary information. Try everything.
Something I did do which didn’t seem to hurt is change the location in the advanced settings for SimpleScripts (that I used to create the install). Methinks that it should be possible to do a fresh install in that new directory and pop in the new .htaccess in the root to the same effect. I don’t feel like trying it but it might be worth a shot.
This is with WordPress 3.0 Multi-Sites created with SimpleScripts but with SQL imported from another webhost.
It works. But the sites of my addon domains are not be loaded with “www.domain.com”. Only with “www.domain.com/index.php”
I put a .htaccess file on addon domain subdirectory with the folowing code: DirectoryIndex index.php. but this not works.
how can i change the subdirectory .htaccess file to do this?
I solve the problem…thanks anyway
I had a code line with rewrite rule that was unnecessarily for the .htaccess file root
I have done this to redirect but now I am having a problem logging in to wordpress’s backend… I type the url with /wp-admin and then it redirects me to wp-login.php?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.velozdh.com%2Fvelozdh%2Fwp-admin%2F&reauth=1 and then everytime I put in my password and username it says wrong password…
the only way to get in is to, after trying to go to /wp-admin/ and then it redirects to the above address… I get rid of the trailing ?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.velozdh.com%2Fvelozdh%2Fwp-admin%2F&reauth=1 stuff so it looks like http://www.velozdh.com/wp-admin.php and then it will redirect again only this time it will work!
Very strange!
if i type http://www.velozdh.com/wp-admin.php from the get go then it does the same problem…
I have this happening on two different accounts where the main domain is using this redirect method and wordpress is being used
It is a weird bug. I had that issue as well. You need to set your .htaccess script in your root correctly for this to work properly. It has something to do with redirects. Not sure, but I after awhile with the newest WordPress upgrades, it seems to have been corrected. Perhaps their permalink script url is working better now.
I’d take a look at the wp-config.php file as well.
This totally helped! But then I changed a permalink setting and I cannot access my backend. When I go to website.com/wp-admin it now goes to website.com/original-subfolder/wp-admin which now doesn’t match the wp and blog uri addresses.
Do you have any ideas? Thank you in advance!