Is it possible to use a 301 redirect like this: www.mysite.com to www.mysite.com/index.php I have tried a few combinations with no luck. Doing index.php to root isn't a option
Is index.php the default on your server (probably not)? Assuming no, then redirect www.mysite.com/{default home page here} to www.mysite.com/index.php
Try adding this to your .htacces: RewriteRule ^$ /index.php [R=301, L] RewriteRule ^/$ /index.php [R=301, L] Code (markup):
Then if index.php is the server default (I realize it's the default page for your site), I'm not sure I understand the problem. Why would you need to redirect www.domain.com to www.domain.com/index.php? It's going there anyway.
Its a pr leak i want to fix.. Right now i have incoming links to both root and index. Index having a higher pr. The site is a toplist site that the incoming vote links pass on pr to the index.php. I have tried to redirect index.php to root but causes errors with the vote codes.
I really don't think it's important enough to be worrying about. The important issue "is do both links get visitors to your home page?" and the answer to that is "yes". Most potential visitors who know about your site will type in only the domain name anyway. Anything else is only a Toolbar PR issue and that's pretty much meaningless.
Its not a big issue really but there are other benfits to having a higher pr page like selling text links and other sites would be more inclined to join the list because of a high pr.
I agree with you 2Scoops. Just fixed one my sites that had an inadvertant internal link to my index.php. Site wide. Ooops. I was contemplating the same fix your are attempting. My solution was to use the myurl.com as the base and change all the references to index.php back to myurl.com. Normally, any external IBL will not specifiy index.php. PR is not what is used to be, but sharing weight among two identical pages is undoubtably counter productive.