.htaccess - how to remove repeated characters from url?

Question

I have the following url:

example.com/hellllllllllo

And I was looking for a way to avoid repeated characters up to double.

Inspired by this question/answers Remove Characters from URL with htaccess I have created the following htaccess document to avoid repeated characters. If the character is repeated more than 23 times the url is not completely rewrited and I was wondering if there is any possible improvment?

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD}  !=POST
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*)l{3,}(.*)$
RewriteRule . %1ll%2 [R=301,L]

It is what I am doing but surprisingly it is limited to 23 characters — RafaSashi, Oct 18 '13 at 07:29
Right! I need to change glasses. It works perfectly. Is there any optimization issue if I do it with every letters? — RafaSashi, Oct 18 '13 at 10:31
Check this previous answer: http://stackoverflow.com/a/3075532/1190388 — hjpotter92, Oct 18 '13 at 13:05

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 19 '13 at 23:22

Here is my full answer to avoid repeated characters in urls using lazy match as suggested by samurai8 in previous comments:

FOR REPEATED SLASHS AND DASHES

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD}  !=POST
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*?)(/{2,})(.*)$
RewriteRule . %1/%3 [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD}  !=POST
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*?)(-{2,})(.*)$
RewriteRule . %1-%3 [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD}  !=POST
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*?)(_{2,})(.*)$
RewriteRule . %1_%3 [R=301,L]

FOR REPEATED LETTERS IN WORDS

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD}  !=POST
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*?)a{3,}(.*)$
RewriteRule . %1aa%2 [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD}  !=POST
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*?)b{3,}(.*)$
RewriteRule . %1bb%2 [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD}  !=POST
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*?)c{3,}(.*)$
RewriteRule . %1cc%2 [R=301,L]
.
.
.

.htaccess - how to remove repeated characters from url?

1 Answers1

Linked