.htaccess, 301 Redirect Dynamic URL To Another Dynamic URL

[morestar]

I've tried and tried...for some time now too...

I need this: -thesite.com/?L=users.profile&id=4424 (this ID is variable so I'm using it as an example)
To this: -thesite.com/?L=this-user.profile&id=4424

I've replaced the http etc with a - so there are no links created in this post.

PLEASE!

[weegillis]

Looks like what you might need to do is create a Mod_Rewrite, rather than a redirect.

[morestar]

I have no idea, really I don't but I do know that the search engines need to know it's a permanent move...It's honestly been years since I could find a solution for this.

[weegillis]

Just throwing this one out here...

.htaccess

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^L=users.profile$1
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/?L=this-user.profile$1 [L,R=301]

It will end up being something along these lines, I expect.

[morestar]

Sorry weegilis. That didn't work either. I have a lot of other 301s in the file for other pages and so forth but for some reason this just never wants to work. I've tried 301 redirect generators all day - still nothing.

Maybe this will help:

The users.profile part is: users = a directory and profile would be a file within that directory.

I did create a duplicate of the above something like this-user for the directory and kept the profile file the same.

The site works with this-user when navigating to it but that's not, it won't redirect...so weird...thanks though for your help weegilis...

[weegillis]

What if 'profiles' was just another parameter: &D=profiles&&c. Then you could shorten the rewrite condition and rule to just "L=users$1" and "L=this-user$1" without the dots.

[morestar]

OK I got this far:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^L=[a-z]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/?L=this-user.profile&id=$1 [L,R=301]

[a-z] matches any character between a and z an so the end result URL that's now (finally some movement here) coming up is the following:

http://www.domain.com/?L=this-user.profile&id=

I tried this to get the ID to display an id:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^L=[a-z]&id=$1
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/?L=this-user.profile&id=$1 [L,R=301]

And the end result was nothing changed in the URL, the same old URL is displaying.

So all I need to know how to do now is get that ID...

[morestar]

This is the last I got...the previous example would redirect anything after L and I actually needed it to be an exact match:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^L=users.*&id=$1
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/?L=this-user.profile&id=$1 [L,R=301]

But this is doing nothing. If I write:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^L=users.*
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/?L=this-user.profile&id=$1 [L,R=301]

I get:

http://www.domain.com/?L=this-user.profile&id=

No good...I need to catch that variable...

[weegillis]

Without going into it the way you have, I am dumbfounded as to what suggest.

The * content is not copied into the wildcard $1 placeholder, perhaps? Seems you would need the wildcard in both condition and rule. Is there is a way to do it with two wildcards, maybe?

[morestar]

OK weegilis, I got some help from another forum, I had to make a small edit but now it FINALLY works! It's been years!

This is what I have:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} L=users.profile
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} id=(.*)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1?L=this-user.profile&id=%1 [L,R=301]

Which gives me http://www.domain.com/?L=this-user.profile&id=[any ID number]



Now as you mentioned in your last post (I believe) this shouldn't work or it's not really the right way?