How does URL rewriting work?

[b***@hotmail.com]

...OK, so I understand that Apache can be made to "rewrite" "site.com/person1" to "site.com/person.php?arg=1" etc etc. - but my question is:
How does Google get the URL "site.com/person1" in the first place? Is it a dictionary? Or does there have to be a link to it somewhere? That doesn't sound plausible or possible.....


Thanks.

[Barry Margolin]

Post by b***@hotmail.com
...OK, so I understand that Apache can be made to "rewrite"
"site.com/person1" to "site.com/person.php?arg=1" etc etc. - but my question
How does Google get the URL "site.com/person1" in the first place? Is it a
dictionary? Or does there have to be a link to it somewhere? That doesn't
sound plausible or possible.....

Why not? That's where search engines get most of their URLs in the first
place, by finding links on other pages.

For instance, site.com might have a directory page with links to all the
users' pages. Or the users might put links to their pages in Facebook,
tweets, etc.