Question

After all those mod rewrite topics here at stackoverflow, I still haven’t find an answer to my question. I have a topsite, and basically all I want to do is to change /index.php?method=in&cat=Half+Life (the “+” is a space) into /Half-Life .

Until now, I’ve succeeded changing /index.php?method=in&cat=Half+Life into /Half+Life.htm .

What I want is to make the .htm disappear and to change the “+” into “-“.

Here’s my code with what I’m working on in my .htaccess file :

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*)\.htm$ /index.php?cat=$1 [L]

One more question: Is it more, how should I call it, “SEO-friendly”, if I do it this way?

Thanks!

Answer 1

The problem with removing the .htm from it is that it then rewrites every single url. That would include urls for files that actually exist (like index.php). There are a couple approaches that you could take.

Assume that all your actual files have a dot (.) in the file name, rewrite everything else. If you do actually have files or directories that are named without an extension, this won’t work. Or if you want some of your categories to have dots.

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ([^\.]+)$ /index.php?cat=$1 [L]

You can have your rewrite rule ignore files that actually exist

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule (.*) /index.php?cat=$1 [L]