How to Change Working GET Queries in PHP with .htaccess for SEO-Friendly URLs

Описание: Explore how to effectively alter GET queries in PHP using `.htaccess`, ensuring SEO-friendly URLs for your web application's posts and questions.
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This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/63551471/ asked by the user 'Sami Ullah' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/9356647/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/63558365/ provided by the user 'anubhava' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/548225/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

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How to Change Working GET Queries in PHP with .htaccess for SEO-Friendly URLs

If you're developing a web application that features posts and questions, it's essential to have an organized and user-friendly URL structure. This not only enhances user experience but also contributes positively to your SEO efforts. Many web developers face the challenge of modifying GET queries through Apache's .htaccess file. In this post, we'll address how to achieve this with ease, particularly for a scenario involving posts and questions from two different SQL tables.

The Problem

In your application, you might want users to navigate from a single page to various posts or questions without facing complicated URLs. For instance, you'd want URLs like:

For posts: example.com/pages/my-page/my-page-first-Post

For questions: example.com/pages/my-page/q/my-page-first-Question

In this case, my-page would be the main page, while my-page-first-Post and my-page-first-Question would represent the titles from your two different SQL tables.

The Solution

Here's how you can implement this using specific rules in the .htaccess file.

Step 1: Enable the Rewrite Engine

Before defining any rules, ensure that the rewrite engine is enabled in your .htaccess file:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Step 2: Define the Rewrite Rules

You'll need three separate rules for handling the URLs:

Accessing the main page

Accessing an individual post

Accessing an individual question

Here’s how to define these rules:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Breakdown of the Rewrite Rules

First Rule: This rule captures the main page and forwards the GET parameter named pages.

Second Rule: This captures the title of a post and passes it as a GET parameter.

Third Rule: This handles questions and similarly passes the question title to the same page.

Step 3: Handle GET Requests in page.php

In your page.php file, you can differentiate the requests based on which GET parameters are present. Here’s a simple way to implement this:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Conclusion

By creating specific rewrite rules in your .htaccess file, you can create a structured and SEO-friendly URL system for both posts and questions in your web application. This not only helps in organizing your content but also enhances the user's navigation experience. Implement these rules, and you'll be able to manage GET queries seamlessly.

By following the steps provided, you're now equipped to enhance your web application with clean and efficient URLs. Happy coding!