jdMorgan - 5:58 pm on Nov 29, 2010 (gmt 0)

You're still trying to shoot your self in the foot...

This is all you need:

ErrorDocument 404 /notfound.php

Then the script at /notfound.php should generate a nice "resource not found" page and help the user find what they wanted.

If you insist on *any* kind of redirect, then you likely won't have any users after a few months, because you will have created such a huge duplicate-content mess that Google and Big will likely just decide that it's easier to ignore your site than to try to index your infinite URL-space.

Your competitors can help you along to total obscurity by linking to as many non-existent URLs on your site as they feel they can get away with. Since your site will then return a 200-OK response, this will help the search engines decide to kick you out of their indices.

Really, if you want success, stick with the HTTP protocol requirements and find a compliant way to achieve whatever goal it is that continues to tempt you to hurt yourself. The correct response to a request for missing resource is a 404_not Found. The correct response to a request for an intentionally-removed resource is a 410-Gone. Only in the case where a typo in a powerful incoming link causes traffic for a high-traffic page to be lost should a 301 redirect to the correct page be used. And the code for that depends on *exactly* how the link is "wrong," and so can't be given without concrete examples to work from.

Jim