This is my htaccess:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ /$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \s/category\.php\?catid=(\S+)\s [NC]
RewriteRule ^ /news/categories/%1? [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \s/article\.php\?title=(\S+)\s [NC]
RewriteRule ^ /news/%1? [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/(exception\.php|admin) [NC]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \s/([^.]*)\.php/?\s [NC]
RewriteRule ^ /%1? [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^news/categories/([^/]*)$ category.php?catid=$1 [NC,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^news/([^/]*)$ artice.php?title=$1 [NC,QSA,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.+?)/?$ $1.php [L]
My problem is that when a user open this URL: XYZ.com/news/categories – it redirects to XYZ.com/404.
I want to avoid this and show him cats.php which is in my base directory. But of course, the URL should continue to remain as XYZ.com/news/categories, only the cats.php file should be loaded for it.
Thank you for your help!
You need an additional rule to handle /news/categories which would be like this:
RewriteRule ^news/categories/?$ cat.php [NC,L]
Your full .htaccess can be like this:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ /$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \s/category\.php\?catid=(\S+)\s [NC]
RewriteRule ^ /news/categories/%1? [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \s/article\.php\?title=(\S+)\s [NC]
RewriteRule ^ /news/%1? [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/(exception\.php|admin) [NC]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \s/([^.]*)\.php/?\s [NC]
RewriteRule ^ /%1? [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^news/categories/?$ cat.php [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^news/categories/([^/]+)/?$ category.php?catid=$1 [NC,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^news/([^/]+)/?$ artice.php?title=$1 [NC,QSA,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.+?)/?$ $1.php [L]