.htaccess redirects

[ArtcoInc]

A couple of questions about my .htaccess file:

 

I have just added a SSL certificate to my site. And, the SSL certificate is issued for www.<mysite>.com (note the www.). So, I now have 3 redirects in the .htaccess file:

1) If the customer does not include the www. in the URL, add it.

2) If the customer does not include the https://, add it

3) Since the store is in the /catalog sub-directory, if the customer doesn't specify the sub-directory, add it.

So, if the user types <mysite>.com, they will be redirected to https://www.<mysite>.com/catalog

The relevant part of my .htaccess file looks like this:
 

RewriteEngine on

#First rewrite any request to the wrong domain to use the correct one (here www.)
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

#Then, rewrite to /catalog
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/catalog [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /catalog/$1 [L]

#Now, rewrite to HTTPS:
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

1) Is there a preferred sequence for this?

2) A couple of the website performance testing sites are complaining about the 3 redirects. Can this be reduced down to 1 or 2?

3) I think Google said that these types of redirect should be a 302, not a 301.


Thoughts? Comments? Insults? B)
 

Thanks!

 

Malcolm