Masking URL

[AnonymousX]

I was given a couple differnet refferals to different websites, but wasn't able to really pick up on what they meant, but it is vital that this be done. What I want done is the following...I want this url...http://www.scf.k12.wi.us/Web/SCF_High_Scho...ootball_hs.htmlto simply be...http://www.scf.k12.wi.usI have the same issue throughout the entire 150 page site. I only want the base URL to show on every single one of my pages. Can somebody give me a good way to do this?Thanks!

[justsomeguy]

I think the obvious answer is to use frames, which won't necessarily be the best thing. The bottom line is that it isn't very usable to have a single URL for all of your pages. It screws with your search ranking, and people can't bookmark pages or send links to their friends, because all links will go to the one home page.You might be able to use mod_rewrite or something, but you really need to ask yourself why. If this is a requirement from the client, they probably aren't aware of the technical limitations. The most obvious being that people can't bookmark pages or post links anywhere, and search engines will not be able to index the site very effectively. The only usable alternative would be to use frames, where your entire site is in a frameset with only 1 frame. If they are really hard up about it, that way will probably be the least stressful for you.

[AnonymousX]

They are fully aware of the limitations that they will be putting on the website. It is a school website, and feel that the url needs to be short and organized, and also wish for it to be this way to protect the folder layout from hackers. They want the single url, and I just need a way to put it on all the pages.

[justsomeguy]

You can't protect the folder layout from hackers like that. The way you protect from hackers is to secure the server, not try and hide the structure. When they point at a link, or view the source, they will see the entire address no matter what shows up in the address bar, so it's pretty pointless.It sounds like non-technical people are trying to come up with solutions for technical problems. The solution is to hire someone who knows how to lock down the server, it's not to try and think up solutions for non-existent problems like knowing what the folder structure is. It doesn't matter if someone knows what the structure is as long as the server is appropriately secured.As far as the URL being short, that's what the domain name is for. Someone can visit www.scf.k12.wi.us and go to the site, there's no reason to have a short URL for every single page (in my opinion), since people are generally not going to be typing in URLs to go to any page, they will either bookmark it or start at the home page. The entire internet was developed with this in mind, for some reason they think their requirements are different then everybody else's. I'm not sure what the solution is, but if this is for security, they are going about it the wrong way. The problem with hacking is not that the attacker knows what the folder structure is, attackers get through because they find exploits in the server software.

[SFB]

if you want a short and orginized url you could put all of your html pages in one folder. the only major problem with this is orginization for you. you will have many files in the same folder and it may get confusing. one more thing you could try is creating a subdomain for certin things. lets say you have a bunch of football pages on your school site. the school could create a url that looks like http://football.schoolsite.org and then have their football pages all in one folder. the hackers(which you most likely dont have) wont know where the folder is when you only use one. so if you had a debate team and they wanted a page you could go like debate.schoolsite.org one drawback to this is that search engines may consider it a different site and the other is more programing. I just thought i would throw some more ideas out there for you

[Skemcin]

You could go about this in another fashion that doesn't require frames but will require some complex and even rediculous coding using a server side scripting language like cold fusion (not sure how what I'll describe can be done in asp or php).Option IWith a properly designed database, you could put all your content (the entire binary HTML file) in a database - yes that is possible. Then, your navigation would have to be redeveloped to all link to the home page but passing in the appropriate key value to pull the respective content/page from the database. That's just a high level overview of that idea.Option IIAgain, with a database, store all the physical location of your static HTML pages. The index page then would use the opject tag or in cold fusion the cfhttp tag to literally render the selected page on the server which in turn sets the content to a variable, which in turn gives you the ability to display the page right there. Again, this will entail reworking your navigation and mostlikely always using absolute link and image paths.i.e. http://www.iribbit.net/i/_files/cfhttp.cfmIf you wanna see this a little more, just add the url string ?myurl=google.comhttp://www.iribbit.net/i/_files/cfhttp.cfm?myurl=google.comOption IIIDatabase all your page locations and use short URLs as your links and as a note on all your pages. Every link would point to the same page with a url parameter that is interpretted and redirected. Very popular with forums and knowledge bases:i.e. http://livedocs.macromedia.com/coldfusion/...cs/part_cfm.htm(now look at the actual URL that is in the address bar).Anyway, its possible, just pretty crazy.