Mod_rewrite indexing

[planbeta]

Just been reading about using mod_rewrite for making dynamic ursl appear static eg.

[myurl.com...] can be
[myurl.com...]

Do the search engines know your site is is using mod_rewrite and will it index the pages fine?

Cheers

Chris

[dmorison]

Hi planbeta,

Short answer - no, it is not possible for a search engine to tell that you are using mod_rewrite.

[planbeta]

Thanks a lot - puts my mind at ease!

Cheers

Chris

[planbeta]

Hi Just to check, using this:

RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymLinks  
RewriteRule .*\.html$ keywords.php  

should mean the 'redirect' will be invisible to the SE's?

Thanks

Chris

[jdMorgan]

Planbeta,

I'd suggest using

RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymLinks 
RewriteRule \.html$ /keywords.php [L]

The [L] flag stops further rewriting, which is usually the desired case, and there is no need to start an unachored pattern with ".*"

As long as you use a local path as the target of the rewrite, and do not use the [R] flag, the rewrite will be transparent to all user-agents.

Jim

[planbeta]

Many thanks jdMorgan :)

[planbeta]

These rewrite rules are mind bending.

Does anyone know how I could write a rule so that

when this is requested:
variablename.pl

this is served:
cgi-bin/search.pl?q=variablename

I can't for the life of me figure it out.

Cheers

Chris

[jdMorgan]

Chris,

Have you done your homework? - Introduction to mod_rewrite [webmasterworld.com]

For use in .htaccess:

RewriteRule ^(.*)\.pl$ /cgi-bin/search.pl?q=$1 [L]

Jim

[planbeta]

Thanks for the link - very good post! Cheers Jim

Chris