How to Write a 301 .htaccess Redirect for URLs Containing Particular Character

WEST PALM BEACH, FL – AI is incredible. It can help you with just about anything, including writing programming codes. I’ve been blown away several times by the power of Artificial Intelligence these days, and it keeps getting better and better.

Recently I needed to write a specific redirect for a weebsite and I was not sure how to do it, so I checked with ChatGPT. The answer was a as easy and writing the question and waiting about 3-4 seconds.

How could I write an .htaccess redirect that would 301 redirect any URLs that contain a “+” sign in them?

To write an .htaccess rule that performs a 301 redirect for URLs containing a + sign, you can use the RewriteCond and RewriteRule directives in combination with regular expressions. Here’s a code snippet that will match URLs containing a + and redirect them to a different page (or structure) of your choice.

Example .htaccess Code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} \+
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.yourdomain.com/new-url [R=301,L]

Explanation:

• RewriteEngine On: Enables the rewrite engine.
• RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} \+: This condition checks if the request URL contains a + symbol (\+ escapes the plus sign in regex).
• RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.yourdomain.com/new-url [R=301,L]: Redirects the matched URL to the specified new URL using a 301 (permanent) redirect. Replace https://www.yourdomain.com/new-url with the URL where you want the traffic to go.

Make sure to replace new-url with the actual target page, and test it thoroughly to ensure it works as expected!

John Colascione

About The Author: John Colascione is Chief Executive Officer of Internet Marketing Services Inc. He specializes in Website Monetization, is a Google AdWords Certified Professional, authored a ‘how to’ book called ”Mastering Your Website‘, and is a key player in several Internet related businesses through his search engine strategy brand Searchen Networks®