How to make a clean URL of this (htaccess URL rewrite)

Question

I use a support system and I want to rewrite the URLs to make them more SEO friendly and better readable. I have very basic understanding of .htaccess rewrite rules / regex and I tried a hundred things, but could not get it working.

The support system is installed on this URL:

http://www.example.com/help/

The code is generating this URL for every article in the KB:

http://www.example.com/help/index.php?/selfhelp/view-article/article-1

The code is generating this URL for the category overview within the KB:

http://www.example.com/hulp/index.php?/selfhelp/categories

How can I rewrite those URLs to something readable and SEO friendly like:

http://www.example.com/help/article/article-1

And for categories:

http://www.example.com/hulp/categories

If this is even possible? And if so, how can I do this using .htaccess.

Answer 1

Well you can make the friendly URLs work like this, and also redirect the old URLs:

# Rewrite new URLs
RewriteRule ^help/article/(.+)$ help/index.php?/selfhelp/view-article/$1 [E=rewritten:1]
RewriteRule ^help/categories$ help/index.php?/selfhelp/categories [E=rewritten:1]

# Redirect old URLs
RewriteCond %{ENV:rewritten} !=1
RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_rewritten} !=1
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^/selfhelp/view-article/(.+)$
RewriteRule ^help/index\.php$ /help/article/%1 [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{ENV:rewritten} !=1
RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_rewritten} !=1
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} =/selfhelp/categories
RewriteRule ^help/index\.php$ /help/categories [R=301,L]