What is URL Rewriting?

A software known as a rewrite engine modifies a web URL’s appearance which is also called as URL rewriting. URL rewriting are used to provide more relevant-looking as well as shorter links to web pages. This method adds a degree of separation between the URL that is presented to the world and the files used to generate a web page.

Lets take an example:

This URL contains query string parameters which encode blog entry dates
http://www.abc.com/Articles/Posts.php?Year=2010&Month=5&Day=1
but can be altered to give you a clear idea of what you are going to see
http://www.abc.com/Articles/2010/5/1/
To change the URL, the second address also allows the user to see all postings available in May, simply by removing the text encoding the day ‘1’ and thereby saving having to navigate the GUI.
http://www.abc.com/Articles/2010/5/

The advantages of a URL Rewriting are:

Prevents undesired “inline linking”
To improve user-friendliness and search engine optimization, it makes website URLs more descriptive
Not expose the inner workings of an address of web site to visitors
The URLs of pages on the web site can be kept even if the underlying technology used to serve them is changed

I hope now you understand what is URL rewriting.