How To Fix A Redirect Chain

The non-www to www redirect is most certainly being handled (later) by WordPress. Your existing redirect in .htaccess is HTTP to HTTPS only, on the same host – which is actually the preferred (read: necessary) way if you have any plans to implement HSTS in the near future. So, this is not necessarily an “error”. … Read more

Unable to access folders in same level as wordpress installation

It’s not clear from the .htaccess files you’ve posted why you can’t access files/folders outside of your WordPress installation (inside the /websiteWP subdirectory). In fact, you shouldn’t need to add specific exceptions in order to access physical files, since these directives shouldn’t apply to physical files. However, your .htaccess files are misconfigured… If the WordPress … Read more