mod_rewrite directives work on their own but not in context of full htaccess file with concrete5 - apache

Question

I am having trouble ammending a site's htaccess file with some mod_rewrite directives I know work in isolation but not in context of the full htaccess file. The site's CMS is Concrete5, so there are some specifics for the Concrete5 configuration in the htaccess file.
I am trying to rewrite URLS of format
http://www.mywebsite.com/proplist/?location=town&distance=3&proptype=buy&maxPrice=&minPrice=&bedrooms=&propertyType=
to
http://www.mywebsite.com/property/town/buy/
I have got the following directives to work in isolation (where I created index.php in a folder called proplist under the webroot on another webserver):
RewriteBase /proplist
RewriteRule property/([a-zA-z]+)/([a-zA-z]+)/$ http://www.mywebsite.com/property/\/?location=$1&distance=3&proptype=$2&maxPrice=&minPrice=&bedrooms=&propertyType= [R]
Redirect 301 /property/ http://www.mywebsite.com/proplist/
(I guess I can use %{REQUEST_FILENAME} instead of http://www.mywebsite.com)
I can't get the above to work in the context of the htaccess file that is already in place which is (with my ammendments):
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
#
# -- concrete5 urls start --
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}/index.html !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}/index.php !-f
RewriteRule . index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# -- concrete5 urls end --
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]
# -- rewrite property search urls --
RewriteBase /proplist
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} property
RewriteRule property/([a-zA-z]+)/([a-zA-z]+)/$ http://www.mywebsite.com/proplist/\/?location=$1&distance=3&proptype=$2&maxPrice=&minPrice=&bedrooms=&propertyType= [R]
Redirect 301 /property/ %{REQUEST_FILENAME}/proplist/
RewriteBase /
# -- end rewrite property search urls --
#Gzip
<ifmodule mod_deflate.c>
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/text text/html text/plain text/xml text/css application/x-javascript application/javascript text/javascript
</ifmodule>
#End Gzip
# remove browser bugs
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip
BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
Header append Vary User-Agent
## EXPIRES CACHING ##
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/pdf "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType text/x-javascript "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 week"
</IfModule>
## EXPIRES CACHING ##
AddType application/font-wof .woff
AddType application/x-font-woff .woff
AddType application/x-woff .woff
# end of full htaccess file
The result of the above is urls such as http://www.mywebsite.com/property/woking/buy/ being redirected to http://www.mywebsite.com/index.php
Can anyone help?

Answer 1

The first thing you need to do is place all the property search URL rules before the concrete5 routing rules. The routing rules completely mangle the URI and when a redirect happens, the mangled URI ends up getting redirected.
So that means these rules:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]
must be before your CMS rules.
You also probably want to change your rules from:
# -- rewrite property search urls --
RewriteBase /proplist
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} property
RewriteRule property/([a-zA-z]+)/([a-zA-z]+)/$ http://www.mywebsite.com/proplist/\/?location=$1&distance=3&proptype=$2&maxPrice=&minPrice=&bedrooms=&propertyType= [R]
Redirect 301 /property/ %{REQUEST_FILENAME}/proplist/
RewriteBase /
# -- end rewrite property search urls --
to:
# -- rewrite property search urls --
RewriteRule ^property/([a-zA-z]+)/([a-zA-z]+)/$ /proplist/?location=$1&distance=3&proptype=$2&maxPrice=&minPrice=&bedrooms=&propertyType= [L]
RewriteRule ^property/$ /proplist/ [L]
# -- end rewrite property search urls --
But I'm not really sure what the point of your original rules were. They're a mix of mod_alias and mod_rewrite which was sure to be a mess. Change the flags from [L] to [L,R=301] if you actually wanted to redirect instead of rewriting (which is what you are asking for, rewriting is not redirecting). So those 2 rules need to go right below the one that redirects to www.