URL Rewriting - Examples

Apache Rewrite Rules can be used to transform a pretty ugly looking URL into a beautiful, SEO-friendly and meaningful URL. I would like to list a couple of real-world examples below to explain how Rewrite Rules can be set up and how they work. Rewrite Rules use Regular Expressions, so this article is closely related to my Regular Expressions article.

Time-Dependent Rewriting

RewriteCond %{TIME_HOUR}%{TIME_MIN} >0700
RewriteCond %{TIME_HOUR}%{TIME_MIN} <1900
RewriteRule ^test\.html$ test.day.html [L]
RewriteRule ^test.html$ test.night.html

Redirect Failing URLs to Another Web Server

RewriteCond /your/docroot/%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.+) http://webserverB.com/$1 [R]

Browser Dependent Content

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mozilla/3.*
RewriteRule ^foo\.html$ foo.NS.html [L]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Lynx/.* [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mozilla/[12].*
RewriteRule ^foo\.html$ foo.20.html [L]
RewriteRule ^foo\.html$ foo.32.html [L]

Blocking of BAD Proxied IP Addresses

RewriteMap hosts-deny txt:/etc/apache2/conf/host.deny
RewriteCond ${hosts-deny:%{HTTP:True-Client-IP}|NOT-FOUND} !=NOT-FOUND
RewriteRule ^/.* - [R=401,L]

Redirecting a URI to a New Format

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !marker
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} id=([-a-zA-Z0-9_+]+)
RewriteRule ^/?human\.php$ /%1? [R,L]
RewriteRule ^/?([-a-zA-Z0-9_+]+)$ human.php?marker&id=$1 [L]

Force some pages to use Secure Server

RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443$
RewriteRule ^/?(page1|page2|page3|page4|page5)$  https://www.secure-server.com/%1 [R,L]

Redirect UserAgent for IPAD, IPHONE, And Anroid OS

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*iPhone.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*iPad.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*Android.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/tab

RewriteRule .* /index.html [R=301,L]

Block Bad Referrer

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} (tvchannelsfree) [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} (onionz) [NC]
RewriteRule ^/.* - [R=401,L]

Make Fancy URLS

Ex. What to What:  

http://domain.com/index.php?id1=3456&text=humanbeing_nonsense&sub_id=14   TO

http://domain.com/senses/humanbeing_nonsense/3456/14.html

RewriteRule ^senses/([a-z_]+)/([0-9]+)/([0-9]+)\.html$  /index.php?id1=$2&text=$1&sub_id=$3

Redirect Page Request to Other Server

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /username/register.php
RewriteRule .* http://domain2.com/username/register_new.php [R=301,NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /username/entry.html
RewriteRule .* http://domain2.com/username/entry.html [R=301,NC]