Joomla Redirect index.php Home Page to Site Root

Joomla allows duplicate content for your home page. For example, if a user enters either http://mysite.com or http://mysite.com/index.php, both URLs show the home page. Google sees this as duplicate content. It’s best to redirect /index.php to /.

How to Redirect index.php to / for Joomla Home Page:

In order to use this procedure, you need to turn on Joomla SEF URLs.

1. Using FTP or your cPanel File Manager, download the .htaccess file from the root of your Joomla installation. This is usually in the public_html folder on your web server.
2. Add a new line below RewriteEngine Onand insert the following text:IMPORTANT: In the code below, change mysite.com to your domain name.

   ########## Begin - Redirect index.php to /
   ## Note: Change example.com to reflect your own domain name
   RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} !^POST
   RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index\.php\ HTTP/
   RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT}>s ^(443>(s)|[0-9]+>s)$
   RewriteRule ^index\.php$ http%2://mysite.com/$1 [R=301,L]
   ## If the above line throws a 500 error, change [R=301,L] to [R,L]
   ########## End - Redirect index.php to /

3. Save .htaccess and use FTP to upload it to the Joomla root folder, usually public_html
4. To test the code, enter http://mysite.com/index.php where mysite.com is your domain name. Your browser should automatically redirect the URL to http://mysite.com