Wordpress Redirect 301 register page

Question

I have a custom register form page, and I want to create a 301 redirect to force people to use this form (and not the original URL of WordPress)

I try to do a redirect 301 like this in my .htaccess, but it doesn't work.

Redirect 301 /wp-login.php?action=register https://monsite.com/register/

What's wrong here?

Answer 1

I would advice you to not use the htaccess for this, but to use a WordPress hook instead.

Check out https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/login_url/

Answer 2

I would suggest you follow @DeltaG's advice in their answer. However, to answer your specific question...

Redirect 301 /wp-login.php?action=register https://example.com/register/

This will never match because the Redirect (mod_alias) directive matches against the URL-path only, not the query string.

To perform this redirect in .htaccess you would need to do something like the following using mod_rewrite at the top of the .htaccess file, before the existing WordPress code block (ie. before the # BEGIN WordPress comment marker):

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^action=register$
RewriteRule ^wp-login\.php$ https://example.com/register/ [R=301,QSD,L]

The QSD flag is necessary to remove the original query string from the request.

Answer 3

Like @DeltaG said, filtering the login_url is a better option than using a .htaccess redirect. If you absolutely need to use .htaccess, follow @MrWhite answer.

Here is an approach using default WordPress hooks..

function wpse404009_redirect_to_custom_registration_page() {

    global $pagenow;
    
    if ( $pagenow == 'wp-login.php' && ! empty( $_REQUEST['action'] ) && $_REQUEST['action'] === 'register' ) {
        //We are on the registration page, redirect now.
        wp_redirect( get_permalink(999), 301 ); ; //Change 999 to the ID of your registration page
        exit;
    }
}
add_action( 'login_init', 'wpse404009_redirect_to_custom_registration_page' );

If you want to filter the login_url.

function wpse404009_custom_login_page( $login_url, $redirect, $force_reauth ) {
    
    //Get the custom login page URL.
    $login_url = get_permalink(999); //Change 999 to the ID of your login page
    
    if ( !empty($redirect)) {
        $login_url = add_query_arg( 'redirect_to', urlencode( $redirect ), $login_url );
    }
    return $login_url;
}
add_filter( 'login_url', 'wpse404009_custom_login_page', 10, 3 );