Shortening URLs

[bravo14]

Hi Guys

 

I am new to .htaccess and I am trying to shorten the URL from something like

 

http://79.170.44.125/platinumbrides.co.uk/page.php?page_id=about_us

 

to

 

http://79.170.44.125/platinumbrides.co.uk/about_us

 

Looking through tutorials out there I have the htaccess as

 

RewriteEngine On

 

RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)$ page.php?page_id=$1

RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)/$ page.php?page_id=$1

 

However this is not working it still shows the original url and if I type inthe shortened URL I get an error saying the page cannot be displayed

 

What am I doing wrong?

 

 

[PravinS]

Try like this

 

 

Options +FollowSymLinks

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^index.html index.php [NC]

[cags]

I always find that when debugging, adding the [R] flag to the end of rules can help you see why it isn't working. You don't appear to be specifying a RewriteBase, as such you should probably change your pattern to...

 

RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)/?$ /page.php?page_id=$1

 

The key difference is the forward slash before the second URI. Note I also combined the two RewriteRules by simply saying the trailing slash is optional.

[bravo14]

Thanks for the replies

 

I now have the .htaccess file set to

RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)/?$ /page.php?page_id=$1

 

When I go to a page I now get an error of

 

You don't have permission to access /page.php on this server.

 

The permissions are all ok.

[cags]

Looking at your original code it would appear that the IP is your domain meaning platinumbrides.co.uk is a folder on the domain. Which means you need to change the relative paths of your domains, in that case you're probably going to need something more like...

 

RewriteRule ^platinumbrides\.co\.uk/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)/?$ /platinumbrides.co.uk/page.php?page_id=$1