Question

I am having an issue with using an .htaccess file to rewrite my urls without .php in them. It works for some addresses, but not others. Here is what is in my .htaccess file..

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/$ $1.php

#rewrite url up to 3 levels
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/$ /$1/$2/$3.php

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(\.[a-zA-Z0-9]{1,5}|/)$
RewriteRule (.*)$ /$1/ [R=301,L]

I have the following folder/file structure on my site..

index.php
about-us
  index.php
  careers.php
our-work
  index.php
  test.php
  client1
    example.php

The following urls work..

example.com

example.com/about-us

example.com/our-work

example.com/our-work/client1/example

But these do not work..

example.com/our-work/test

example.com/about-us/careers

I just get a 404 error.

Any idea why this is happening?

Answer 1

You don’t have a 2 level rule, just a 1 level and 3 level rule. You should add:

#rewrite url to 2 levels
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/([^/]+)/$ /$1/$2.php

You should probably prefix your 3 level rule with the RewriteCond conditions also:

#rewrite url to 3 levels
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/$ /$1/$2/$3.php

This will prevent the rule being invoked if there is a directory with the same name or the PHP file does not exist.