using 404's as redirects

[ucbones]

Hi,

I'm working on a site redesign, and one of the things I want to change is the number of folders on my site. I don't have access to the server (it is hosted by http://www.49pence.com).

The organisation I'm working for runs lots of different events, and they want each event to be accessible by www.domain.com/eventname. For fairly obvious reasons, I don't want to have to creat folders, so here is my plan (dreamed up on the train on the way home.

1. Don't create the folders

2. Create a custom 404 page

3. Use the 404 page complete with request_uri to get the page they wanted

4. redirect the user to the appropriate page
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   Any comments, is this just silliness, laziness, perfectionism? Anyone got any better ideas?

   Many thanks,

   ucbones

[Silverlime]

Why not just use mod_rewrite in Apache?

[werkkrew]

I dont know what site management software your hosting company uses, if any, but in apache there are ways to create redirects, where if a url is entered for the domain, ie, www.domain.com/event/index.html it could redirect it automatically to a different page, IE, www.domain.com/event.html

You could also edit the htaccess file and create custom error pages, which could in turn redirect someone, but the 404 page would be the same, and hence, redirect to the same place, no matter where on the domain generated the 404.

You will probably need assess to the site regardless to do any of this.

[superwormy]

I've done it ucbones' way, works great.