I'm looking for a tool that manages vanity url's for a single domain running on Apache (or IHS - IBM HTTP Server).
What i mean by vanity URL:
www.mycompany.com/ProjectA
would redirect toservera.mycompany.com/whatever
www.mycompany.com/ProjectB
would redirect toserverb.mycompany.com/another/directory
www.mycompany.com/FallCampaign
would redirect toservera.mycompany.com/whatever/offer.html
- etc etc
The current solution implemented consists of thousands of manually updated directories with php scripts which redirect the user. This has come a maintenance nightmare. Converting this solution to a solution using manually updated .htaccess file(s) is not an option either*.
Ideally, this tool would:
- work for an apache / IHS web server
- provide a web interface for users and administrators
- allow users to create, delete and update vanity urls
- allow users to specify case sensitivity, or case insensitivity for each vanity url
- allow users to specify redirects as HTTP 301 (permanent) or HTTP 302 (temporary) for each vanity url
- allows users to specify each vanity url as permanent (for products) or temporary with a 'take down' date (for marketing campaigns).
- provide a work flow users to submit vanity url requests, and for others to approve it
- (as a possible solution) write out a single, managed .htaccess file, provided that the file is validated by the tool prior to pushing them out to the server so that it does not negatively impact the server.
- (as a possible solution) write out directories with redirects/.htaccess files, but would also manage creating, updating and deleting these directories.
- possibly use a database backend, or a xml backend.
- provide a solution that meets these critera in a manner i didn't think of.
- (optional) provide very simple reports (number of permanent urls, number of temporary urls, upcoming temporary URLS's that are expiring, etc)
* using a single manually edited .htaccess file poses too much of a risk if an error is put into the file, could effect all urls. Multiple .htaccess files, located in directories is the same maintenance nightmare as using php redirects.