URL Rewriting - Search Engine Friendly URL’s - Part 2

by Scott Allen

You probably know by now that dynamic web sites have a challenge in search engine optimization because they often use dynamic url’s with information carried from page to page in query strings. (http://www.yourdomain.com/index.php?id1=value1&id2=value2&id3=value3)

Through proper use of .htaccess and mod_rewrite, you can turn your ugly dynamic url’s into search engine friendly (and user friendly) url’s.

[The following is a re-post from http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/url-rewriting/ ]

Static URLs are known to be better than dynamic URLs for a number of reasons:

Static URLs typically rank better in search engines.
Search engines are known to index the content of dynamic pages much more slowly than that of static pages.
Static URLs look friendlier to end users.

Example of a dynamic URL
http://www.yourdomain.com/profile.php?mode=view&u=7

This tool helps you convert dynamic URLs into static looking HTML URLs.

Examples of the above dynamic URL re-written using this tool:
http://www.yourdomain.com/profile-mode-view-u-7.html
or
http://www.yourdomain.com/profile/mode/view/u/7/

Note
You will need to create a file called “.htaccess” and paste the code generated into it. Once you have created the .htaccess file simply copy it into your root web directory.
URL rewriting of this type will work ONLY if you are hosted with Apache Server.

Security Note
To prevent any random hacker from viewing your .htaccess file, it is highly recommended that you add the following code to the end of it: