Forum Moderators: phranque
Here's a scenario I recently ran into...
Ring, ring. Ring, ring. (My mobile phone)
Me: Hello, this is Edward, how can I help you?
Client: Edward, its me, I need some help desperately.
Me: What's the matter?
Client: We just sent out our email newsletter to over 5,000 recipients and there is an incorrect link to the promotional page in the newsletter. I forgot to verify that all links were resolving before sending the newsletter, can you help me?
Me: Sure, hold on one minute. (Here's where I open the site live at the server through FrontPage and modify the httpd.ini file. It takes me all of one minute to insert a rule to capture the bad URI and permanently redirect it to the new URI.) Okay, all done.
Client: What? That was it? You fixed it? How did you do that?
Me: Ah-ha, I can't tell you my secrets, that is what you pay me for. ;)
This is just one instance where having the ability to handle rewriting at the site level is of great benefit. We were able to make the correction for the client within minutes after they sent their email. Fortunately, we have a custom 404 in place but we want that user directly on the page they belong, not at a site directory where they have to find what they were looking for.
What ingenious ways have you used a rewrite to assist clients?