I can still remember the first time I looked at a .htaccess file.
It was a late night... and I was in over my head. I blinked and continued staring at my computer screen.
On the screen was a .htaccess file that came with the Joomla CMS I was using. I did not understand anything I was looking at. All I knew was something, somehow, somewhere was broken.
At this time, I knew so little HTML and CSS, I had a half-dozen browser tabs open to w3schools.com. I did not know PHP, RegEx (regular expressions), or the Apache web server even existed. It is amazing how much you can do without knowing anything.
But there I was staring at that .htaccess file determined to figure it out.
The .htaccess file was an enigma.
Yes, I recognized words like "redirect" and "rewrite". If you asked me what they did I could guess but that was all.
Because of my ignorance, I searched for information online. I found lots of information and code snippets. Stack Overflow became one of my best friends that night. However, I did not find many resources that break things down simply (to my level).
Years have passed. I have learned more than I ever thought there was to learn.
I feel the time has come to give back to the community I learned so much from. Yet, I want to provide information in an easy to understand and accessible way.
My goal is to provide a guide that will help you understand how you can use the .htaccess file to impact your website’s search engine optimization (SEO).
I hope you find this information helpful. It would not be possible if it were not for the developers and SEOs who freely shared their insights and knowledge with me.
Sincerely,
Daniel Morell
