htaccess redirect not working

[usanyou]

hello,

can anyone plz offer suggestions as to what i'm doing wrong when trying to edit my htaccess file to redirect affiliate links? i'm new at this but thought that the steps were simple enough even for me to do, BUT .... after testing my changes, i still see my affiliate URL in the browser window.


i've created a sub-folder called, "Temp" and that is the htaccess file i'm editing (not the one in my root directory). in this sub-folder, i have multiple files that i wish to re-direct, but i'm not having much luck out of the gate. what am i missing? ...


the syntax i'm using is:
redirect 301 /[filename] [full affiliatelink]

my html editor is FrontPage 2003 and i've also edited the following folders to read "Options +FollowSymLinks" (not that it seems to matter)

_vti_bin
_vti_bin / _vti_adm
_vti_bin / _vti_aut


anyone ....?
plz ... ?

[hartken]

I only mess around with the .htaccess file when I need to use search engine friendly urls. All that means is when you want to pass a variable without using the questionmark, like

http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=180911

will become http://forum.pcmech.com/t/180911/showthread.php

That is the only reason why I ever used .htaccess files, and actually I don't do that too often because I simply SEO the first page of the site. I always liked coding redirects in PHP or ASAP or even Javascript. I think it is easier that way.

[usanyou]

yes, php has its own set of benefits that i also use, but additionally, i'm experimenting with some different methods and would like to be able to create a working redirect with my htaccess file.

by chance, have you any experience in rewriting your urll with mod_rewrite?