URL cloaking/masking question

Hello,

I am looking for some help on .htaccess using it on a subfolder. If you have any idea, please let me know.

I want users to see http://www.mydomain.com/folder in their address bar everytime they access anything under /folder

For Example:

When accessing http://www.mydomain.com/folder/4544.html or http://www.mydomain.com/folder/6857.html their address bar should always read http://www.mydomain.com/folder or http://www.mydomain.com

Please note that I do not want users to be redirected....I simply want to hide the actual URL.

I do not want to use iframe. Also, I understand that hiding actual URLs is not good for SEO but I am fine with that.

thank you very much.

 

That is not really possible...Because you are using a direct URI. No matter how you cut it, you need to redirect...And even then it wont work. So maybe someone else has an idea but based on what I know about HTTP, its not possible.

 

I read on some forums that .htaccess may help...I guess not in this case

 

Well idk , but proxies use something like that, so u can look into that..

 

Somone may wonder how will the users get to http://www.mydomain.com/folder/4544.html or http://www.mydomain.com/folder/6857.html ?

I am using a script for that redirection. For example, http://www.mydomain.com/folder1/?1 --> http://www.mydomain.com/folder/4544.html

However, that script does not provide cloaking/masking so users see http://www.mydomain.com/folder/4544.html in the address bar and hence my thread

 

You cant remove the last part, its the URI.

 

You have to use frames/iframes, or make every single internal link part of a <form method="post">. I don't believe there's any other way.

 

There has to be a way as I have seen this done on many websites before. Next time I come across one like that I'll post it so you can check the source (I dunno if it would be in there?)

I'm sure someone must know how it's done.

 

Those web sites are either using frames, or the changes you see on the page are done with AJAX.

 

If you don't want your link to display in the status bar at the bottom, use a javascript function call from onmouseover/onmouseout to rewrite window.status. To follow a link, use a javascript function call from an onclick to load the link into location.href.

Someone can still look at the source and get the link if they really want it. It's all but impossible to keep a techie type from getting it. But who cares anyway?

 

Are there still any browsers that allow this?

 

Do browsers not allow javascript anymore?

 

Any decent browser nowadays will let you control if you want to allow changing the statusbar text, resizing the windows etc. Most of the time these things are not allowed, by default, so to utilize it the user actually have to turn this stuff on.

Therefore, it is "not allowed" anymore. Simple.