I’ve written some code on my .htaccess file which allows the use of SEO friendly URLs instead of ugly query strings. The following code rewrites the SEO friendly version in the browser to the query string version on the server.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^seo/([^/]*)/$ /directory/script.php?size=large&colour=green&pattern=$1 [L]
So that the ugly
http://www.mysite.com/directory/script.php?size=large&colour=green&pattern=striped
Is now beautiful
http://www.mysite.com/directory/seo/striped/
Just to explain the code a bit; seo
is there to add more keywords to the URL, /directory/
is the directory in which the .htaccess file is located, parameters size=large
and colour=green
never change, while pattern=$1
can be many different values.
The above code works perfectly. However, the problem is I am now stuck with two URLs that point to exactly the same content. To solve this, I would like to 301 redirect the old, ugly querystrings to the SEO friendly URLs. What I have tried so far does not work - and Google is not being particularly friendly today.
Can anybody offer working code to put in my .htaccess file that redirects ugly to new URL, while retaining the rewrite? Thanks!