I am getting a little bit crazy on the topic and hope to find some help.
I am re-building currently my website into an MVC structure. This includes also SEO-friendly (pretty) URLs.
I achieved already the transformation of my URL-requests
from: http://www.example.com/company?id=about_us
to: http://www.example.com/company/about_us
my .htaccess-file
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
# Transforms an ugly-URL into a pretty-URL ('external redirect' updates also adress in browser)
# ugly URL: www.example.com/company?id=about_us
# pretty URL: www.example.com/company/about_us
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^id=([\w-]+)$
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ $1/%1? [R=301,L]
# Transform an pretty-URL into a ugly-URL ('internal redirect')
# pretty URL: www.example.com/company/about_us
# ugly URL: www.example.com/index.php?url=company/about_us
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ index.php?url=$1 [QSA,L]
Now the GET-Request of a FORM (select box for some articles) comes into the game, which is not working with the above-mentioned htaccess-file. While each article has a SEO_slug saved in the database, which is dynamically put into the form. The SEO-slug has already this format:
"<city>/<type>/<articlename>"
The HTML looks like this:
<form method='get' action='../articles/'>
<select name='id'>
<option value='london/fruit/article_1' >Article 1</option>
<option value='london/nuts/article_2' >Article 2</option>
<option value='newyork/fruit/article_3'>Article 3</option>
<option value='newyork/nuts/article_4' >Article 4</option>
<option value='miami/fruits/article_5' >Article 5</option>
</select>
</form>
The Problem:
Now, the request is sent to the server, but the slashes (/) are transformed to '%2f', which generates with my current htaccess a server internal error.
Questions
1) Can I prevent the transformation from slash (/) to '%2f'?
2) How do I have to update my mod_rewrite to enable this. I have seen so many websites, but I never found a good solution. I was capable to achieve a bit with this:
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^id=([\w-]+)(%2F*)(.*)(%2F*)(.*)$
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ $1/%1/%3/%5? [R=301,L]
, but I have problems with the numbers of slashes as sometimes the depth is different.
Can anybody give me a good advice? Many thanks! Maybe I am trying to solve the story on the wrong end and need to think totally different??
Cheers Tim
Finallay I found a solution, which I would like to share with you:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
# Transforms an ugly-URL into a pretty-URL ('external redirect' updates also adress in browser)
# ugly URL: www.example.com/company?id=about_us
# pretty URL: www.example.com/company/about_us
#
# REMARK: The important group is the thrid. The two first groups are
# important if the query string contains slahes (/) that are
# encoded as '%2F'. As there is no 'replace'-function each
# Level of '%2F' needs to be rewritten step by step
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^id=([\w-]+)%2F([\w-]+)%2F([\w-]+)$
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ $1/%1/%2/%3? [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^id=([\w-]+)%2F([\w-]+)$
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ $1/%1/%2? [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^id=([\w-]+)$
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ $1/%1? [R=301,L]
# Transform an pretty-URL into a ugly-URL ('internal redirect')
# pretty URL: www.example.com/company/about_us
# ugly URL: www.example.com/index.php?url=company/about_us
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ index.php?url=$1 [QSA,L]
If you have any comment on this to improve it, I am happy to hear about it.