Removing redirect chain

**robbie269** · 11 Dec 2012, 10:12 PM

When I run Page Speed I get only one error below about redirect chains. It only happens with the current template. Is there a way to fix it?

Code:

Remove the following redirect chain, if possible:

    http://www.chainwheeljewellery.com.au/store/includes/templates/responsive/css/stylesheet_zen_lightbox.css
    http://chainwheeljewellery.com.au/store/includes/templates/responsive/css/stylesheet_zen_lightbox.css

Remove the following redirect chain, if possible:

    http://www.chainwheeljewellery.com.au/store/includes/templates/responsive/images/logo.png
    http://chainwheeljewellery.com.au/store/includes/templates/responsive/images/logo.png

Remove the following redirect chain, if possible:

    http://www.chainwheeljewellery.com.au/store/includes/templates/responsive/jscript/jscript_bootstrap.min.js
    http://chainwheeljewellery.com.au/store/includes/templates/responsive/jscript/jscript_bootstrap.min.js

Remove the following redirect chain, if possible:

    http://www.chainwheeljewellery.com.au/store/includes/templates/responsive/jscript/jscript_imagehover.js
    http://chainwheeljewellery.com.au/store/includes/templates/responsive/jscript/jscript_imagehover.js

**robbie269** · 11 Dec 2012, 10:23 PM

Don't worry, I fixed it. There were 2 options in the template's .htaccess page that I did not know about. I chose option 2 instead of 1.

Code:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
   RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
   RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\..+$ [NC]
   RewriteRule ^ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
 </IfModule>

**DrByte** · 11 Dec 2012, 10:40 PM

I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that there's a really good reason why those are listed as minor low-priority items: because they're exactly that, very minor. The reason they're very minor is that those redirects will never be triggered in real-world practice.

Your site has an .htaccess rewrite rule that redirects any chainwheeljewellery.com.au to www. chainwheeljewellery.com.au (without the space), and so the only reason the stated redirects would occur is if someone SPECIFICALLY tried to access, for example:

http://chainwheeljewellery.com.au/store/includes/templates/responsive/images/logo.png
which would redirect to
http://www.chainwheeljewellery.com.au/store/includes/templates/responsive/images/logo.png
because of your .htaccess rule.
And that's fine.

But since the very same thing happens with your home page or any other page/link someone would visit in your store, that means anybody who visits the non-www prefixed URL will FIRST be redirected to the www. prefixed URL. And THEN any javascript or css or images will all be loaded by requesting the www. prefixed URLs

So, I suspect that the only reason for pagespeed giving you those suggestions is that you told pagespeed to check "your_domain.com" instead of "www.your_domain.com". I'm inclined to suspect that you wouldn't get those suggestions if you tested the www. version of your site directly.

That said, I see no reason to change your redirects. It looks good now.