Using 301 Re-Directs

[MortimerJazz]

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I've almost finished building a site using Affilistore.

It's the first time I've used it and I've found it to be pretty flexible, although one of the things that I'd like to change are the long URLs that it uses.

For example:

http://www.mysite.co.uk/categories/2.../BrandName.htm

Ideally I'd like the URL to be http://www.mysite.co.uk/BrandName.html for both SEO and PPC purposes.

I'm pretty sure the Affilistore script won't let me ammend the URLs in this way, so I was thinking of putting a 301 Redirect in my .htaccess file. Would this work? And if so, is this the best way of going about things without being penalised by Google?

Thanks alot,

[Brendon]

What would be better would be URL rewriting - all the work gets done at server level then

[MortimerJazz]

HTML re-writing would be ideal I guess (I've used it in Wordpress before), but I'm not sure Affilistore supports that.

Is it something I can do outside of the script?

[Brendon]

>> but I'm not sure Affilistore supports that.

That's OK, it's a server level task - Affilistore will never "see" the rewritten URLs. The server will convert the requests back and forth at the HTTPD level, just changing what the URLs are for the "outside world"

>> Is it something I can do outside of the script?

Yes - it needs installing to the server root, or is modded directly at the server control panel (depends on your server language / OS / control panel. You'll probably need to talk to your hosting co. about it)

[MortimerJazz]

You'll probably need to talk to your hosting co. about it)

Thanks for the help Brendon. I really appreciate it.

At the risk of sounding like a complete noobie, what do I need to ask them? Is it just a case of saying that I want to set up URL re-writing and seeing what they say?

I'm generally quite good with technology but I haven't tried setting this up before.

And just out of interest, why is it better to do it this way than set up a load of re-directs in the .htaccess file?

Thanks alot,