Advanced $GET_ Use?

[sp0om]

I've seen some sites that have URLs like:

site.com/articlexxxx

This is a neat trick I would like to be able to learn myself. Is $GET_ used to do this? I assume there isn't a folder on the server for each article (because there would really be a ton of them).

A real working example of these neat URLs: http://digg.com/technology/WHAT_EVER..._TO_CHANNEL_1_

[triexa]

there are a number of ways.

The first I learned was to use an error page which checked the URL, if it was fitting their "form" then they sent a header saying page found and supplied the correct page.

I think mod_rewrite (apache) can also be used to accomplish this...

[musher]

I imagine mod_rewrite is being used on most sites for this sort of thing. If you run apache, mod_rewrite is definitely worth checking out.