mod_rewrite not working?

Question

I have a bunch of non-existent urls that need to be redirected to new ones, though they are not working... mod_rewrite does work and is enabled, I'm wondering if the redirect URL has to actually exist in order for a redirect ot work.

Here is what I have:

Redirect 301 /cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?display=action&emptyoverride=yes&template=Assets/XHTML/Advantage.html http://domain.com/the-bag-to-nature-advantage.html

UPDATE this is the request that comes in [indexed in google!] http://domain.com//cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?display=action&emptyoverride=yes&template=Assets/XHTML/Advantage.html

this is where it needs to go: http://domain.com/the-bag-to-nature-advantage.html

Answer 1

To use mod_rewrite:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^display=action&emptyoverride=yes&template=Assets/XHTML/Advantage\.html$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^/cgi-bin/commerce\.cgi$ http://domain.com/the-bag-to-nature-advantage.html [R=301]

Note that this is for if it's in your VirtualHost context; strip the leading slash on the RewriteRule if you put it in a Directory or htaccess context.