301 redirect with Apache: All paths of URL to a single path

Question

I am migrating a website from one platform to another, and in that process, I'm getting rid of the old domain name. There is no direct relation between the paths on the old and new website, and therefore, I want to redirect all old paths to the new websites' front page: I.e. olddomain.example/any_path should redirect to the front page of newdomain.example. I am aware of the SEO consequences of this.

My current solution is to use the RedirectPermanent directive, so that my .htaccess in the domain's root directory contains:

RedirectPermanent / https://newdomain.example/

How do I achieve that any path on olddomain.example (e.g. olddomain.example/any_path) is redirected to the front page (and not the corresponding path) of newdomain.example?

Answer 1

I think this should do the trick for you. On the old domain, put this code in the .htaccess file (this assumes a 301 redirect is used).

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule (.*) https://newdomain.example [R=301,L]

Answer 2

My current solution is to use the RedirectPermanent directive

The RedirectPermanent (mod_alias) directive is prefix matching so, as you have found, you will be redirected to the "corresponding path" on the newdomain.

However, the complementary mod_alias directive RedirectMatch matches using a regex and will allow you to redirect all URLs to the single root URL.

RedirectMatch 301 / https://newdomain.example/

This is marginally preferable to using mod_rewrite (RewriteRule), unless you are already using mod_rewrite for other redirects.

I am aware of the SEO consequences of this.

Not just SEO (Google will most probably treat this as a soft-404), but also a usability issue. It would be preferable (less confusing) for the user to redirect to the same URL-path on the new domain and serve a custom 404 - explaining the absence of the old page, with links to the homepage and other key pages on the site and possibly a site-search feature to allow new content to be found.