apache .htaccess - cut a string from url and redirect

Question

For some reason google indexed several pages of my website as:

http://myapp.com/index.php/this-can-be-enything/1234

Now, I want to redirect wit

Answer 1

I've added to my .htaccess file following lines:

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^.*index.php.*
RewriteRule ^(.*)index.php(.*)$ $1$2 [NC,R=301,L]

I don't know if this is best solution but works ok for me.

Answer 2

Two Parts of problem

1. To make Google aware that indexed page is moved to some other destination you need to handle that @ apache level and issue 301 ( moved permanently )

2. Handler to handle the cached requested URL to new URL using the #1 handler itself.