Question

I want to get rid of some query string on my whole website (explicitly facebook shared/like query which usually begin with fb_action).

I thought about using .htaccess to do that.

I want this:
Link 1)

http://example.com/documents/de_desmarais_en_sirois?fb_action_ids=10151430962018298&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=timeline_og&action_object_map={%2210151430962018298%22%3A157643874359578}&action_type_map={%2210151430962018298%22%3A%22og.likes%22}&action_ref_map=[]

to look like:
Link 2)

http://example.com/documents/de_desmarais_en_sirois

In my .htaccess, I added:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} fb_action
RewriteRule ^(.*) /$1? [R=301,L]

But, when I go on the original link, I am directed to my root folder example.com/pages.php, but I want to keep the first part of the URL which is example.com/documents/de_desmarais_en_sirois. I don’t want to go to my root.

What should I modify/do?

Answer 1

I assume you’ve added those rules to the htaccess file in the /documents/ directory?

You’ll need to remove the leading slash in your rule’s target and add a rewrite base:

RewriteBase /documents/

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} fb_action
RewriteRule ^(.*) $1? [R=301,L]

The query string match could be improved a bit though:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (.*)(^|&)fb_[^&]+(.*)$
RewriteRule ^(.*) $1?%1%2 [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (.*)(^|&)action_[^&]+(.*)$
RewriteRule ^(.*) $1?%1%2 [R=301,L]

To remove only the facebook query string parameters, if you have other parameters that you want to preserve.