As the Apache documentation says, because the rewrite is defined in .htaccess context, "the path prefix of the directory containing the .htaccess file is stripped before matching." So try removing the first slash.
Code: Select all
RewriteRule ^neighbourhood /before-you-arrive/neighbourhood [L]
If that doesn't work (and I don't really expect it to), read the
Joomla! documentation on search engine friendly URLs. Pay particular attention to where it mentions aliases. You may be able to define an alias so the rewrite is done by Joomla! instead of Apache Server.
I suspect the problem with doing an internal rewrite using the RewriteRule approach is that, while you achieve the user seeing a final REQUEST_URI of "/neighbourhood", Joomla! sees that same REQUEST_URI and not the "/before-you-arrive/neighbourhood" that it needs for its routing logic. When the RewriteRule
redirects a user from "/neighbourhood", Joomla! receives the "/before-you-arrive/neighbourhood" REQUEST_URI, but the user sees the long version too.