URLs without filenames

How to point to a page without showing its filename?

[kevin3d]

I've noticed some sites don't seem to show the specific file you're looking at in the url. I read this is a good practice because it allows, among other things, for you to change language (say from html to php) without visitors losing their bookmarks.

How can this be done?

[webaster]

they rewrite the urls on the fly

for example with md5 you can rewrite a string so the end-user can not really guees where the file is situated.

It is a form of encoding an decoding a string. Use server-side languages eg php to achieve this also mod_rewrite , a apache php module is used also

eg link <a href="/mypage.php?fss2e12fs4ef1sgg"></a>

where mypage.php?fss2e12fs4ef1sgg refers to eg mypage.php?action=login

Hope this helps somehow

[kevin3d]

Thanks for the response.

I wonder how that impacts the pages ranking in search engines?

[g1smd]

They are either using every page as an index page (so you can use index.html now and then change to php later), or rewriting URLs such as www.widgets.com?shape=hexagonal&size=4&colour=blue to be www.widgets.com/hexagonal/4/blue/.

By starting off using HTML index files, and never including the index file filename in the links (end with the folder name followed by a trailing / on the URL), you will always be able to use the same URL to access the content whatever technology you decide to use in the future.