How to prevent homepage 301 chains? - apache

Question

I'm trying to make all versions of homepage URLs 301 to same place, without a 301.
It's difficult to show the problem because I don't have enough rep points to post image or show the http response codes in a chart (too many links!)
But, using the code below https://www.example.com/ goes to http://www.example.com/ first, before it 301s to the homepage URL http://example.com
I'm on apache, and I've been using .htaccess to try to resolve this.
I've tried also tried the following, but it only works for file paths.
Redirect 301 /oldfile.htm /newfile.htm
# Redirect HTTPS to HTTP
RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} =https
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
#Force non-www:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example/$1 [L,R=301]
I've tried also tried the following, but it only works for file paths.
Redirect 301 /oldfile.htm /newfile.htm
Is there a way I can make https://www.example.com/ go to http://example.com without the 301 chain?
Thanks,
Mike.

Answer 1

You can use a single rule to redirect your https URLs to http and non-www version. This will redirect all of your https urls to http without creating multiple redirect chain.
Replace your htaccess rules with this :
# Redirect HTTPS to HTTP and non-www
RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} =https [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(?:www\.)?(.+)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
Make sure to clear your browser cache or use a different web browser to test this rule.