Rewriting dynamic urls to static urls

[Mohamed]

I have small problem which is I want convert dynamic urls to static urls and I am using this code, but it looks like the code is not working.

I want convert url from
www.example.com/artist.php?artist=John Smith
to
www.example.com/JohnSmith/

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^artist\=([^&]+)$
RewriteRule ^$ /artist/%1-%2.html [R=301,L]

please help me!

[edited by: jdMorgan at 2:49 am (utc) on Mar. 1, 2006]
[edit reason] Reformatted using [ code ]. [/edit]

[jdMorgan]

Mohamed,

Your code does not agree with your description of your goal. The code will only work for the index file. That is, the pattern "^$" will reject any local URL-path that is non-blank.

Actually, I suspect the problem is deeper. If you wish to use static, search-engine-friendly URLs on your site, then the following procedure should be used:

Replace all dynamic links on your pages with static links. This can be done using PHP preg_replace. These static links will then be clicked-on by users, and indexed by search engines.

Place code in your .htaccess file to convert those static links, when requested by users or search engine robots, back to the dynamic form needed to invoke your script(s).

mod_rewrite is not an output filter. It operates in the URL-to-filename translation phase early in the request-handling process. It is used to modify URLs requested from your server before any content-handlers are invoked and before any scripts are executed. It cannot change the URLs displayed on your pages.

For more information, see the documents cited in our forum charter [webmasterworld.com] and the tutorials in the Apache forum section of the WebmasterWorld library [webmasterworld.com].

Jim