Rewrite engine

A rewrite engine is a piece of computer software used to modify URLs, for a variety of purposes.

The Apache HTTP server has a rewrite engine called mod_rewrite, which has been described as "the Swiss Army knife of URL manipulation". There are also rewrite engines for other web servers such as Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS).

A detailed description of Apache's mod_rewrite is available on the Apache.org website.

Benefits derived from a rewrite engine are:

• rendering complex web site structures search-engine friendly;
• preventing undesired 'hot linking'

Other Rewrite Engines:

For Microsoft's IIS:

• IISRewrite from Qwerksoft
• ISAPI_Rewrite from isapirewrite.com