My serendipity blog is in the main folder at BlueMushrooms.com. The rewrite rule I had added in was this:
That makes it so that if people type "www.bluemushrooms.com", it will load as "bluemushrooms.com". This may not matter to average bloggers, but if you want your site to rank well in Google, it's very important, because Google counts the www and non-www version as two domains and penalizes you. (Which is, IMHO, ridiculous, but what can ya do?)RewriteEngine On
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^bluemushrooms\.com$
RewriteRule (.*) http://bluemushrooms.com/$1 [R=301,L]
Now, the PROBLEM was, I had a directory in a subfolder. S9's rewrite rules were clashing with the subfolder's rewrite rules, so I had no choice but to put a "RewriteEngine Off" in the subfolder's htaccess. Still with me?
But that meant people typing in "www.bluemushrooms/directory" would get the www version, which is not a Google happy situation.
Here's the solution. This is the htaccess in my SUBFOLDER that makes everything work. Notes in red explain step by step what's being accomplished:
RewriteEngine Off (turns off S9's clashing rewrite rules)
#lmasetting (settings the subfolder script needs to function)
<files directory>
ForceType application/x-httpd-php
</files>
#lmasettingend
RewriteEngine On (turns rewrite back on for subfolder)
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^bluemushrooms\.com$
RewriteRule (.*) http://bluemushrooms.com/[b]directory/[/b]$1 [R=301,L]
(this is the key line that tells it where to redirect people who use "www". By sticking my subfolder at the end (bold), each folder gets the appropriate redirection to work the way I want)