I recently had to solve the problem of redirecting URLs with php queries, i.e. http://www.phillab.net/?page=programme&subpage=Passdraw → http://www.hasper.info/passdraw/ by using the .htaccess file.

Since most of the URLs did not have such a 1:1 translation like the example above, I did not work with wildcards – but this is also possible! I had the following constraints

1. The php queries have to be removed from the redirected URL (this is not the standard!)

   RewriteEngine On
   RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} subpage=passdraw
   RewriteRule (.*) http://www.hasper.info/passdraw/? [R=301,L] #The question mark in the end does the trick!
   

2. The php query check should be case-insensitive

   RewriteEngine On
   RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} subpage=passdraw [nocase]
   RewriteRule (.*) http://www.hasper.info/passdraw/? [R=301,L]
   

3. Some queries have to point to the same new URL

   RewriteEngine On
   RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} subpage=passdraw [nocase,or]
   RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} subpage=bestAppEver [nocase]
   RewriteRule (.*) http://www.hasper.info/passdraw/? [R=301,L]
   

4. Some queries contain special characters like dots or plus signs.

   RewriteEngine On
   RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} subpage=Ghostball\x2B3[nocase] #A plus sign has to be replaced by \x2B
   RewriteRule (.*) http://www.hasper.info/ghostball-3/? [R=301]
   RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} subpage=N\.T\. [nocase] #A dot has to be escaped by a slash
   RewriteRule (.*) http://www.hasper.info/n-t-a-commercial/? [R=301,L] #The L marks this as last rule