How do I redirect my site using a .htaccess

Question

How do I redirect my site using a .htaccess ?

http://www.domain.com/index.php

to:

http://www.domain.com/index.php?page=search

It's not working in .htaccess :

redirect 301 /index.php http://domain.com/index.php?page=search

Answer 1

With Redirect directive you can not redirect /index.php to /index.php?page=search as it will redirect to the same location causing a Redirect loop error, You need to use mod-rewrite :

Try :

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^$
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ /index.php?page=search [NC,L,R]

Remove the R flag if you an invisible redirection.