Rewrite underscores to hyphens for SEO URL

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Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
 
RewriteRule !\.(html|php)$ - [S=6]
RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2-$3-$4-$5-$6-$7 [E=underscores:Yes]
RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2-$3-$4-$5-$6 [E=underscores:Yes]
RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2-$3-$4-$5 [E=underscores:Yes]
RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2-$3-$4 [E=underscores:Yes]
RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2-$3 [E=underscores:Yes]
RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2 [E=underscores:Yes]
 
RewriteCond %{ENV:underscores} ^Yes$
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.askapache.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Reader Comments

1. Andriy ~

   And what’s your suggestion if the URL can include up to 16 underscores that should be rewritten to hyphens?

2. Chris Phoenix ~

   The article’s example code has S=5 option (skip next five rules) followed by six underscore-elimination rules.

3. Jake ~

   how can you use this rewrite but exclude directories

4. stefan ~

   Hello i just wondering if there is anyway to rewrite underscores to slashes.

   Thanks in advance, sorry for my bad english.

5. lucas ~

   it would be better to have html and php extensions skipped using a condition yet still allow querystrings. but more importantly to use one rule to replace underscores and loop it with the N flag instead of trying to anticipate how many there’ll be. this version addresses those issues and trims consecutive underscores to a single hyphen.

   Options +FollowSymLinks
   RewriteEngine On
   RewriteBase /

   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.(html|php)($|\?) [NC]
   RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_+(.*)$ $1-$2 [E=underscores:Yes,N]
   RewriteCond %{ENV:underscores} ^Yes$
   RewriteRule (.*) http://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]

6. mark ~

   Haven’t be able to get this to work, and I’ve tried all of the variations in the two further reading links.

   I have the file extensions removed on the old site and on the new, so all I really need to do is rewrite the underscores to dashes.

   Love to know where I’m going wrong but not being a tech, I don’t really know where toe start.

   PS At the moment I’m testing on a local wamp setup before I go messing around with a live environment.

7. Faruk ~

   Hello can anyone tell me how can i edit a htaccess multicommand file?i m currently using user friendly code and i added codes for broken links and code for fclearing query_strings
   but at the and it did not work:

   RewriteEngine On
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
   RewriteRule . /friendly_url.php

   ErrorDocument 400 http://www.sicaktakip/error_404.html
   ErrorDocument 401 http://www.sicaktakip/error_404.html
   ErrorDocument 403 http://www.sicaktakip/error_404.html
   ErrorDocument 404 http://www.sicaktakip/error_404.html
   ErrorDocument 500/http://www.sicaktakip/index.php
   RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^source= RewriteRule (.*) /$1? [R=301,L]
   Anyone any idea for that?

8. Joe ~

   Hi – Great resource. At the risk of sounding ignorant, could you please tell me where abouts (i.e. in which directory/folder/subdirectory I would place this code to ensure the rewrite to dashes works? Thanks

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