htacces redirect for SEO friendly URLs - .htaccess

Question

I have my htaccess file setup, so that the pages remove extensions. Now, I am trying to make the pages that transfer variables, into SEO friendly urls ... so, for example...
http://www.example.com/art-gallery?page=2 ... which is actually "art-gallery.php?page=2", would turn into... http://www.example.com/art-gallery/page/2
Or... http://www.example.com/art-piece?id=3 ...would go to... http://www.example.com/art-piece/id/3
... and so on ...
I have alot in my htaccess file, and am not sure how to do the above (there are plenty of tutorials on going from www.example.com/index.php?page=2 to www.example.com/page/2/ but none that do exactly what I need). Ideally, I'd like to be able to do this for all similar pages...
# enable the rewrite engine
RewriteEngine On
# Set your root directory
RewriteBase /
# Force www:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [L,R=301,NC]
# Remove the .php extension
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^GET\ (.*)\.php\ HTTP
RewriteRule (.*)\.php$ $1 [R=301]
# Remove index and reference the directory
RewriteRule (.*)/index$ $1/ [R=301]
# Remove trailing slash if not a directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /$
RewriteRule (.*)/ $1 [R=301]
# Forward request to html file, **but don't redirect (bot friendly)**
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$
RewriteRule (.*) $1\.php [L]
# Disable Directory Browsing
Options -Indexes
# Disable Hotlinking of Images
# with forbidden or custom image option
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?example.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?google.com [NC]
RewriteRule \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif)$ – [NC,F,L]
# Protect htaccess File
<files ~ "^.*\.([Hh][Tt][Aa])">
order allow,deny
deny from all
satisfy all
</files>

Answer 1

You can transfer parameters with the variable QUERY_STRING.
Consider the following rule:
RewriteRule ^index.html index.php?%{QUERY_STRING}&m=main&a=index
This rule would transform
index.html?something=value
into
index.php?something=value&m=main&a=index

Answer 2

You should use the RewriteEngine.
You could also use a 301 redirect either alone or in conjunction with the RewriteEngine to redirect SEs.
Generally, though redirecting SEs to a different page than what users will see is not a good practice, and may result in your pagerank decreasing. Instead, try migrating all your pages to the second URL format, and consider using 301 redirects to help the transition.
Generally: Use 301 redirects for SE-friendly page changes. See this SO for additional reference.

Answer 3

You can insert this rule just before Forward request to html file rule:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^/])/([^/])/([^/])/?$ $1.php?$2=$3 [L,QSA]

Answer 4

This is quite old but why not do the following:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^([^?]*) index.php?route=$1 [L,QSA]
Then in your index.php you can handle it like such;
if (isset($_GET['route'])) {
$route = explode('/', $_GET['route']);
if (iconv_strlen((end($parts)), 'UTF-8') == 0) {
array_pop($parts);
}
}
From here your main level would be handled with $route[0], second level $route[1]
For example;
http://example.com/art-gallery/2
$route[0] would equal 'art-gallery'
$route[1] would equal '2'