ISAPI Rewrite

The ISAPI rewrite tool is the premier tool for rewriting URLs on the windows platform.  This is 3rd party component that must be purchased and installed onto your server by the hosting company.  Now many shared hosting enviornments do offer this as a server wide component, so definitely check with them to see if it is installed.  If it is not installed, then you will definitely want to ask why not, and if it is allowed on the server.  Do to many different shared hosting concerns, the server company may not allow this software installed onto their machines.  But I can tell you that it is safe, or at it has always been for the many years that I have been using it.  This doesn't mean that there are not concerns with using this software, but no different than using any software, it must be used correctly.

How it works

To really learn all of the in's and out's of this software, is way beyond the scope of what this webpage is about.  This page is simply an brief introduction to the fact that this tool exists, it is great, and you should use.  With that brief disclaimer said...Here we go.

• The Isapi rewrite module after installed will usually be immediately available to all websites hosted on the selected server.
• The httpd.ini file will configure your instance of the application. The file should reside in your root directory, or in the same folder as your index file.
• [ISAPI_Rewrite] is the first required code to initiate.
• Example:
  
  RewriteRule /sample1.htm /sample1.asp [I,L]
  
  This rule says that if the server gets a request for the file /sample1.htm to redirect it to the file of the server for /sample1.asp.
• Done

So what does it all do?  We'll good question, and by the example above we are seeing that you are able to redirect or "Spoof" a file to point to a totally different internal file on the server.  This is transparent to the web browser and they don't have to do anything at all, and neither do you once the file association has been properly setup. 

The purpose of this to only use the page "/samples/isapi_rewrite/examples/arefun.html" as an external link to your website.  The reason for this is that the search engines highly prefer it.  It can help you to get pages indexed that can otherwise be found or indexed.  So, my final though is this...

This is an advanced tool, and most websites that require a tool like this have content originating from within a database and use a sophisticated programming language to serve that conent.  So, if you aren't the web designer, you should probably ask your web designer about it or refer them to this page for more information.  Good luck and let us know of your success or stumpling blocks so that we can continue to improve this page and provide more information.