Question

I have a mobile site and it has just started a service for desktop users also. How do I use .htaccess to redirect users using the desktop to the desktop version of the site?

I have tried simple PHP scripts to redirect to the home page of the desktop version, but I would like the redirect to be slightly more efficient. For example, I would like to redirect http://site.com/subfolder/ to http://site.com/desktop/subfolder/, and I figured that using .htaccess might be able to get the job done.

I have tried the following and it doesn’t seem to work.

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/desktop/.*$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "!android|!blackberry|!ipad|!iphone|!ipod|!iemobile|!webos|!googlebot-mobile" [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /desktop/ [L,R=302]

Please help!

Answer 1

Try these rules in your .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymlinks -MultiViews
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/desktop/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*(MSIE.*Windows\ NT|Lynx|Safari|Opera|Firefox|Konqueror) [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !(^.*(Opera\ Mini|SymbianOS|Mobile)) [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /desktop/$1 [L,R=302,NC]

Update (combined with wordpress rules)

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
Options +FollowSymlinks -MultiViews

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} !^GET\s/wp-login\.php [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(desktop/|wp-admin/|wp-login\.php) [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*(MSIE.*Windows\ NT|Lynx|Safari|Opera|Firefox|Konqueror) [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !(^.*(Opera\ Mini|SymbianOS|Mobile)) [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /desktop/$1 [L,R=302,NC]

RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(desktop/|wp-admin/|wp-login\.php) [NC]
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

</IfModule>
# END WordPress

R=302 will redirect with https status 302

L will make last rule

NE is for no escaping query string

$1 is your REQUEST_URI