[robert]

It's a very powerful tool, does anyone use it or more so, know that they do?

[StarLab]

If the host provides it, I use it. There are some hosting companies which do not have this enabled (mostly windows IIS servers running apache)

As far as what it does:

When you use php or other dynamic generation, and have 'stuff' after the question mark of a URL that is hard for a search engine to read, (if they can read it at all):

http:// yoursite.com/index.php?stuff=show-this

Mod_rewrite will turn it into:

http:// yoursite.com/stuff/show/this.html

It also strips ampersands from the URLs as, like the question mark, they are hard for search engines to interpret.

A very quick explanation, but more info can be found by a quick Google search on the subject.

[scoooooty]

Yep I use it on both my joomla sites. It can be turned on in joomla backend under global configuration>Search Engine Optimization

[diddy1]

Wordpress uses it too though there are some duplicate content issues associated with mod-rewrite. Mainly because even though it renames the file the original name of the file is till there and if it's indexed by se it may cause your site be penalized (lol I can't believe I actually found a sentence to include that word in).

Thank you

[paul411]

mod_rewrite is a really nifty mod on Apache server. I use it for some of my sites. I still working with mod_rewrite on a site right now: Truly Simple

I use it because it makes the URLs clean and uncluttered which makes it easier for users and search engines.

Another advantage is that if you have a script that opens other files (eg. www.site.com/open.php?file=test.php) some hackers may use the URL to open sensitive files which may compromise security. If the URL was something else like www.site.com/open/test, it makes it harder for people to explore places on your site that you want hidden.

[Ajay]

I have it on all my sites, both handcoded or running readymade software.