using apache mod_rewrite and click append

[justhomdotcom]

Just thought i'd check this out with people in the know if this will work or not.

In 1st quarter 2007 we are starting up another online retail site and of course because affiliate marketting has been so succesfull for us with justhom we will be launching the new site on two networks again.

What i'd like to do is use apache mod_rewrite from the start with it so that all php files will be turned into search engine friendly html urls

now the problem i see though is that because we use two networks with justhom we use the facility in AF and AW to append a variable on the end of a .php so for example
for AF
it would be
http://www.justhom.com/home.php?af=af
or for a deeplink it would be
http://www.justhom.com/product.php?productid=451&af=af

or for AW it would be
http://www.justhom.com/home.php?af=aw
or for a deeplink it would be
http://www.justhom.com/product.php?productid=451&af=aw

that then triggers the internal cookie checking to reward the last referrer the comission.

now this isn't going to work if I use apache mod_rewrite is it? (or is it thats the question) as
http://www.justhom.com/god-damn-sexy...ear.html&af=aw wouldn't be a valid url
or
http://www.justhom.com/home.html?af=aw

so the question is
1. would it work
2. if not what would be a good alternative so that we could use the same type of internal cookie system.

any ideas would be most welcome

[phildarv]

Off the top of my head try this for this link:

http://www.justhom.com/god-damn-sexy...ear.html&af=aw

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule god-damn-sexy-underwear-(.*)-(.*)\.htm$ /product.php?productid=$1&af=$2

Rewritten URL would be: http://www.justhom.com/god-damn-sexy...ear-451-aw.htm

the aw part would be replaced as necessary with af

[justhomdotcom]

so then i'd just need to get the cookie generator to generate the correct affiliate cookie based on the last bit of the url i.e -aw.htm

that correct?

[phildarv]

Yes

The url will pass the variable as $af so you just need to read that (just af or aw not -af or -aw)

[morleymouse]

could have a problem including the aw or af bit in the url, the page could get indexed.

So in theory you then have 3 pages that are exactly the same:

http://www.justhom.com/god-damn-sexy...ear-451.htm

http://www.justhom.com/god-damn-sexy...ear-451-aw.htm

http://www.justhom.com/god-damn-sexy...ear-451-af.htm

this should work:

http://www.justhom.com/god-damn-sexy...-451.htm?af=AF

im not fully in with the development of our site but

http://www.alpharooms.com/hotel.aspx...8-D98676B21DDC

is the same as:

http://www.alpharooms.com/best_western_grand_de_l'empereur_in_maastricht.asp x

And affiliates can link to either

[steveaich]

Alternatively (I think)

add the following line to your .htaccess file

AddType application/x-httpd-php .html

Apache will then process all .html pages as though they were .php pages

Or am I barking up the wrong tree and not understanding the question

[Lynx]

Something like this might work for you:-

RewriteRule [.]*-productid([0-9]*).html product.php?productid=$1
http://www.domain.com/you-can-put-anything-here-for-seo-purposes-productidXXX.html

RewriteRule [.]*-productid([0-9]*)-affiliate-(.*).html product.php?productid=$1&affiliate=$2
http://www.domain.com/you-can-put-an...-seo-purposes-productidXXX-affiliate-XX.html

(i haven't checked but think the syntax is correct.)

L.>