Static URLs - if "Search Engine Friendly URLs" is not supported

[IanMax]

Can anyone tell me in plain, laymen's terms - preferably step-by-step instructions, how to make my urls static if I cannot use the "Search Engine Friendly URLs".

I'm running PHP on a Linux box - hosted at godaddy

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

[Elmacik]

What do you mean by static?

[IanMax]

Basically,

Instead of: http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=71507.msg486230#msg486230

I would like: http://www.simplemachines.org/community/topic,71507.msg486230.html

Any ideas?

[Elmacik]

This is completely about search engine friendly URLs and you say "if SEF is not working with me"
What you ask is not really possible.
Your server must have PHP compiled as an Apache module and Apache server must have mod_rewrite activated.

[IanMax]

I understand the server limitations.

The fact of the matter is simply that I cannot use the Search Engine Friendly functionality of SMF because I don't have the aforementioned server requirements.

I'm asking if there's a way to work around the issue and create search engine friendly urls or "static urls", as I previously wrote, either manually or through a bridge.

[Elmacik]

No not possible. Because search engine friendly URLs is not a standard. Only Apache serves this and only in the conditions I told above.
In anothey way to say, this is a feature of Apache, not others. So you cant do this unless you meet the requirements.
I dont know if there are very other ways to do this. I dont think either.

[Daniel Hofverberg]

Your server must have PHP compiled as an Apache module and Apache server must have mod_rewrite activated.

If I'm not mistaken, the "Search Engine Friendly URLs" feature in SMF does not use mod_rewrite. As far as I can make out, it uses directory look-back support (virtual directories) in Apache via so-called AcceptPathInfo. At least the last time I checked...

So mod_rewrite should not be needed for that.

[destalk]

You could try this smf mod_rewrite. I've not used it myself, but I found it when I was doing some research.