[Forum] Converting to SSL with a changed URL structure: order of items in htaccess

[djbaxter]

Continuing with the upgrade of that old forum, the next step is conversion to HTTPS.

SSL certificate already applied.

Now, the URL structure has also changed from vBSEO (uninstalled) to Standard vBulletin 4.2.5 Friendly URLs.

Posts are easy to redirect:

#rewrite old vBSEO urls
RewriteRule [^/]+/([0-9]+)-[^/]+\.html http://www.politics.ie/showthread.php?t=$1 [L,R=301]

But then in order not to lose search index links to categories and forums, as well as certain special links, I have a rather large number of Redirect 301 lines similar to this:

Redirect 301 /forum/current-affairs/ http://www.domain.com/forumdisplay.php?26-Current-Affairs

My question:

The redirect for http to https and for non-www to www will look something like this (I think this should do both?):

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^politics\.ie$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.domain\.com$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/[0-9]+\..+\.cpaneldcv$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/[A-F0-9]{32}\.txt(?:\ Comodo\ DCV)?$
RewriteRule ^\$\/?(.*)$ "https\:\/\/www\.domain\.com\/\$$1" [R=301,L]

So is it better to use the http to https redirect FIRST before all the Redirect 301 statements?

Or should the Redirect 301 statements come first, ending with the https to https instructions?