How do I use ISAPI_Rewrite

Change answer.asp to have only this in the code:
<% Response.Redirect("graphics.html") %>

I dont think that would work because asnwer.asp takes in a variable kwds, so the link could be  

 http://www.mysite.com/answer.asp?kwds=keyword_entered

i want it to be

 http://www.mysite.com/keyword_entered.html

I want to use ISAPI_Rewrite to do that for every key word entered

That will still work. The simple one-liner ASP page won't care about parameters.

Oh, I see, sorry, try:
<% Response.Redirect(Request.QueryString("kwds") & ".html") %>

One problem with that - it redirects to the html page but how can i keep the content in
 http://www.mysite.com/answer.asp?kwds=keyword_entered

the same as


 http://www.mysite.com/keyword_entered.html
now it just redirects and goes to page not found.

thanks

I'm confused here... You don't want a redirect, those html files don't exists? You just want the URL to change?

SOrry i didnt explain that, those html files dont exist- i want to do a URL rewrite. Same content, I just want to rewrite the url to be static instead of dynamic.

Interesting, they have to click on that asp link in the first place don't they?

I don't know ISAPI_Rewrite, I guess you went there right?:
http://www.isapirewrite.com/

From what I see, ISAPI_Rewrite will "redirect" to the second URL. It will not simply change the URL you see in the browser.

In fact, it's a security flaw to do so, cause you could "rewrite" it to https://www.yourbank.com and make a darn good spoof site.

I 'll check out that site, i just read that its bpossibly to change dynamic links to static ones and thats all i want to try to do.

Please point me to that on the isapirewrite site.
It IS possible to change a dynamic link to a static one or a static one to a dynamic one, but the browser will get a redirect and go to the second link. So it needs to exist.

Let me answer your questions in a different order than you asked:

2. How does this work? Do i modify a file on my server?
- This works by installing a Global ISAPI filter on the server and configuring it properly.  You need to change IIS configuration and modify the configuration file for the ISAPIReWrite filter as well.

3. I have 2 sites hosted separately, server A i have ONLY FTP access to. So can i just write a script and upload it? or do i have have to change multiple files.  Server B i can ONLY UPLOAD files, minimal FTP access, will just uploading a single script work ?
- You will need access to the IIS Management Console - FTP will not allow you to use or configure ISAPIReWrite.  Additionally you will need administrative access to the machine in order to make the changes necessary.

1. I want to change this link....
             http://www.mysite.com/answer.asp?kwds=graphics
                    to
             http://www.mysite.com/graphics.html

How do i do this?
- ISAPIReWrite would be a viable method of doing this - it would be a fairly simple regular expression to write.  You could also use URLRewrite from the IIS 6.0 Resource Kit Tools in a similar manner.

However, from the description you gave you don't have enough access to the server to install or configure either of these solutions.

You will need to speak with your hoster about implementing either of these solutions.

Dave Dietz

Dave, the page http://www.mysite.com/graphics.html doesn't exist. So I don't think ISAPIRewrite or URLRewrite can do this.

From what I see, mrperfect75000 wants the Browser URL to change to http://www.mysite.com/graphics.html but the executed server-side script still be http://www.mysite.com/answer.asp?kwds=graphics

Is that correct mrperfect75000 ?

Actually either will be able to do that.  What they do is catch the request at the ISAPI filter level and modify the URL that is actually presented to the W3SVC service which then acts on the modified URL and sends a response back to the client.

The address in the client's browser is unaffected and the content is generated/pulled from whatever URL the filter changes it to.

Dave Dietz

Right... That's what I'm saying. Sorry if I'm not clear enough.

He wants to change the link from (for example's sake):
http://www.mysite.com/answer.asp?kwds=graphics
to:
http://www.mysite.com/graphics.html

BUT http://www.mysite.com/graphics.html doesn't exist, so IIs won't be able to serve it.

Look at my ASP redirect script, that didn't work for him since the redirect-to page doesn't exist.

Make sense?

Yes I was trying to have the browser change and still have the same content. I want the browser to change because i dont want the user or search engines to see my dynamic links.

But i want the content to stay the same.


If i can do that with an ASP redirect script that would be the best so i wont have to talk to my host
thanks

mrperfect75000, I'm sorry, but you can't change the browser URL. You don't control that.

So your goal is to avoid search engines? Or do you want search engines to show the link as a static one?

If you DON'T want your site indexed, simply add a robots.txt in your root with:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /

Or if you only want that script out:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /answer.asp

My goal is to not let people change kwds, just because they see asnwer.asp?kwds=graphics, they can just change it to asnwer.asp?kwds=techno and get the right thing. And i also understand search engines dont index dynamic links.

Here is an example of what i'm talking about....

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/misc/rewriteguide.html