how to find redirect source through htaccess in php?

Question

I have a site with lots of links that redirect to a small set of links.

I used the htaccess redirect 301 to redirect a user going to www.example.com/something/something_else/ , to www.example.com/my/collective/url/index.php where something and something_else are not actual folders but just keywords. Is there a way in index.php to know which url it was redirected from?

I tried $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] but it gave me nothing.

EDIT: the rewrite rules I used are as follows:

RewriteRule ^something/something_else/(.*)$ /my/collective/url/$1 [R=301,L,NE,P]

UPDATE: I eventually added a php script for the rewrite, in order to get the HTTP_REFERER. Seems there is no way to properly get it, since after redirect the HTTP_REFERER turns to the redirected url or disappears entirely. Would still be happy to get an answer though if there is a way.

Answer 1

You can use $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] this will not be affected by a RewriteRule, but will not do any good no a pure redirect.

Instead of using a line like so:

RewriteRule ^.*$ index.php [R=301,L]

You could remove the R=301 part to not change the page location viewed by the browser, that way, the user thinks he really landed on your page using the /something/something_else link. This is also perfect for SEO... Just look out to not create too many links pointing to the same content...