redirecting all possible hostnames to one using mod_rewrite

tags:

SEO experts claim that having multiple hostnames point to the same site will result in lower rankings for that site. It's common to see sites accept both "www.foo.com" and "foo.com".

I have no idea if this is true, but it makes a bit of sense, so why take the chance.

I want to direct everyone to "devbee.com" regardless of what they type in, with one exception. I want to allow for a hostname test.devbee.com for my own devious purposes. This is what I'd put in the mod_rewrite section of my .htaccess or httpd.conf file:

  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^devbee.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^test.devbee.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://devbee.com/$1 [R=301,L] 

This tells Apache that if the hostname is not "devbee.com" *and* it is not "test.devbee.com" then make it devbee.com.

For detailed info on Apache mod_rewrite, read the official documentation .  

That was easy.