Seamless Transitions: Mastering Apache Redirects for a Smooth Hugo Migration

This week, I dove into setting up redirects with Apache to make the transition to Hugo's multilingual system smoother. The challenge? Ensuring that all those old links still worked while I migrated to the new URL format.

For instance, I needed to redirect:

/es/distrib to /distrib/index.es.html
/es/social_contract to /social_contract.es.html
/es/intro/about to /intro/about.es.html
/da to /index.da.html

To tackle this, I turned to Apache's mod_rewrite. Here’s the magic I came up with in my .htaccess file:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/([a-z]{2}(?:-[a-z]{2})?)/(.*)$
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/$2/index.%1.html -f
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/$1/$2 !-d
RewriteRule ^/([a-z]{2}(?:-[a-z]{2})?)/(.*)$ /$2/index.%1.html [last,redirect]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/([a-z]{2}(?:-[a-z]{2})?)/(.*)$
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/$2.%1.html -f
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/$1/$2 !-d
RewriteRule ^/([a-z]{2}(?:-[a-z]{2})?)/(.*)$ /$2.%1.html [last,redirect]

What’s happening here? The rules check if the URL starts with a language code (like /es or /da). Then, they verify whether the corresponding HTML file exists. If it does, and the path isn’t a directory, voilà! The user gets redirected to the new format.

It’s a bit of a dance with conditions and rules, but it’s satisfying to see everything working seamlessly. Now, as I continue migrating content, users clicking on old links won’t end up in a digital dead end. It’s all about keeping the flow smooth and maintaining that user experience.

So, if you’re also juggling multilingual pages and thinking about making the switch to Hugo, don’t underestimate the power of mod_rewrite. It’s your best friend in the world of redirects! Happy coding!