Line By Line Explanation Of The .htaccess File

Appendix I –

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

This makes sure that mod_rewrite, the internal program that controls the redirect functionality, is available. If your host doesn’t allow it, find another host.

RewriteEngine On

This turns the mod_rewrite program on.

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond checks to see if something is true about the request, which for our purposes is the URL that was clicked, meets certain conditions. If the condition is met it continues on, if not, the process stops and the URL is processed as is.

%{REQUEST_FILENAME}

This is evaluating the non-domain portion of the URL. So if the URL was:

http://www.somesite.com/adirectory/adirectory/afile.html 

REQUEST_FILENAME is looking at adirectory/adirectory/afile.html

!-f

The condition is true if the REQUEST_FILENAME is not an existing file on the web server.

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

This is evaluating the condition that REQUEST_FILENAME is not an existing directory on the web server.

So if the URL points to an existing file or an existing directory then nothing is done and the mod_rewrite program lets the URL go as if the .htaccess file didn’t exist.  

This ends the mod_rewrite section of the .htaccess file.

Now we can put the single line of text that will magically turn your make believe link into a valid URL and send it off to the web page you want, and get properly credited if it is an affiliate link.

It is very important that the new line of text be placed between the last REWRITE_COND and the line.. It’s also important to note at this time that the domain must be your real domain; it is only the directories and file names that can be make believe.

For this example we will say your domain is www.somesite.com, and you have the .htaccess file in the root directory (the very top of your web site structure).

We’ll use the example affiliate link from the first part of this e-Book as the destination URL:

http://www.lynxtrack.com/afclick.php?o=0000&b=5szt79sm&p=0000&l=1 

On our site, and anywhere else we can place affiliate links, we want the link to be:

http://www.somesite.com/mygreatestoffer 

Here is what the .htaccess file will look like (the new line is high lighted):

# BEGIN

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^mygreatestoffer(/)?$ http://www.lynxtrack.com/afclick.php?o=000&b=5sz [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

# END

Let’s look at this piece by piece.

RewriteRule

This tells the mod_rewrite program to evaluate the next piece and if it matches to rewrite the

URL.

^mygreatestoffer(/)?$

This is what RewriteRule is trying to match.

The ^ means to look at the beginning of the requested filename, everything after .com/ in this example.

It then looks for mygreatestoffer. The (/)? says to look for 0 or 1 instances of the / symbol. The reason for this is to catch accidental postings of http://www.somesite.com/mygreatestoffer vs. http://www.somesite.com/mygreatestoffer/ .

The $ says there should be nothing else after the tested string. Without it the file request could be mygreatestoffer01 or mygreatestoffer/evenbetter and it would still work. If you are comfortable with that leave the $ off.

The http://www.lynxtrack.com/afclick.php?o=000&b=5sz is the URL you want the user to end up at. A Hydramedia offer in this case.

The [L] Tells the mod_rewrite program to stop processing and go to the provided URL.

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