One of the best ideas my web team came up with is something called mod_rewrite:
This module uses a rule-based rewriting engine (based on a regular-expression parser) to rewrite requested URLs on the fly. It supports an unlimited number of rules and an unlimited number of attached rule conditions for each rule to provide a really flexible and powerful URL manipulation mechanism. The URL manipulations can depend on various tests, for instance server variables, environment variables, HTTP headers, time stamps and even external database lookups in various formats can be used to achieve a really granular URL matching.
Basically, it takes complicated URLs like http://blog.andertoons.com/search.php?kwords=sales&browseall=false&resultsfrom=1&cat=Sales (showing sales-themed cartoons) to something much simpler like http://blog.andertoons.com/cartoons/sales/.
Now instead of having to solely use the site itself for navigation, you can search and browse via your browser’s address bar.
Looking for the business cartoons page? Add /cartoons/business/ after http://blog.andertoons.com.
Wanna search for cartoons about meetings? Just add /search/meetings/ at the end.
Need cartoon #4002? Add /cartoon/4002/.
No more looooooong URLs. No more remembering to add .php at the end. No more confusion.
And the best part? All the old URLs people bookmarked or have linked to still work, and are automatically redirected to the current address.
Simple, easy, intuitive URLs. Nice!
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