I'm redirecting a bunch of directories on my site using statements like:

Redirect /olddirectory http://www.mywebsite.com/newdirectory

The problem is that if a user capitalizes a letter, or the entire directory name, then the redirect doesn't work. I don't think many people would type the directory name in anything other than lowercase, but in the off-chance that someone does, how can I get the redirect to work regardless of the capitalization?

Just as long as you get a 404 response code, don't worry about it.

Is there no way to overcome the problem, other than having multiple redirects like this?:

Redirect /olddirectory http://www.mywebsite.com/newdirectory
Redirect /oldDirectory http://www.mywebsite.com/newdirectory
Redirect /OldDirectory http://www.mywebsite.com/newdirectory
Redirect /OLDDIRECTORY http://www.mywebsite.com/newdirectory

Don't even THINK about that!!!!! each line of the .htaccess file has to be read for EVERY request made to the server. So a THREE letter name creates EIGHT lines. (WordLength^2)

Well, I don't need to have every case in the .htaccess file, just lowercase, uppercase, first letter capitalized, and the first letter of each word capitalized. So that would be four lines for each case.

The thing is, I'm trying to do this for what's sort of a 'turnkey' website, so I really need to make sure if the person's url is typed in the wrong case that the user stays on their site..

So four lines for each case, if you only have ten pages, that's forty lines to be processed for each request

AND that's what the "404" error handling page is for, catching mispelt page manes.

Is it bad to have a lot of lines in the .htacces file? What alternative is there for me if I end up having dozens of redirects needed (not including capitalization cases)?

Are you suggesting that I make the 404 page PHP and try to redirect the user to the correct page?

Is it bad to have a lot of lines in the .htacces file?

It can be.


Unless you are using RedirectMatch conditionals, every line has to executed and evaluated against the current request, twice if a redirect is triggered.

It all adds overhead to the request.

Apache doesn't recommend using .htaccess, if you can avoid it, for it causes a performance hit: The server must load the .htaccess file with every request, and if/deep/in/a/tree/, it must look in every level up the tree for one whether it exists or not. If you can place your redirects in the server httpd.conf file, that gets read once and won't be nearly as bad. However, many of us use shared hosting and do not have that option.

Perhaps another approach would be to design a 404 page at the destination site to use php or cgi code to catch DirectoryNames that contain caps and send them on to their lowercase counterparts.

At least then an action is taken only when needed and you don't burden the entire system to cover a "what-if."

Hope this helps.....

Originally Posted by L a r r y

Perhaps another approach would be to design a 404 page at the destination site to use php or cgi code to catch DirectoryNames that contain caps and send them on to their lowercase counterparts.

At least then an action is taken only when needed and you don't burden the entire system to cover a "what-if."

Hope this helps.....

I could do that. I had no idea that having many lines in the .htaccess file was a bad thing

However, doing as you suggest might mean not having a sitemap as my 404 page. Would this hurt my site's seo?

However, doing as you suggest might mean not having a sitemap as my 404 page. Would this hurt my site's seo?

Why would it?

You are not changing anything on the pages.

Originally Posted by Learnin' n00b

I could do that. I had no idea that having many lines in the .htaccess file was a bad thing

However, doing as you suggest might mean not having a sitemap as my 404 page. Would this hurt my site's seo?

Your 404 page, if written in php, for instance, can be written to include some form of logic that consists of an "if - then - else." Something on the order of:

IF

a CapitalizedFilename is sent to 404 because it doesn't exist, THEN
I have a routine here to make it all lowercase and forward it on."

ELSE

Generate the HTML containing the standard output of your 404 page, which can contain a link to your sitemap or can be a sitemap.

END IF

Now, I am recalling syntax from BASIC in this example, as I used a lot of that on my Radio Shack Color Computer 2, 30 years ago. But PHP and Perl, even Bash, have their own syntax for accomplishing this same thing.

And if a CapitalLink is 404'd it runs through the routine and gets sent out in lowercase, and then, if that doesn't exist, it will be 404'd again. This time the 404 Not Found page/sitemap is displayed on the visitor's screen.

There is a http://tycoontalk.freelancer.com/web...4-rewrite.html rewrite thread that may be of interest to you in designing logic into a 404 page.