The .htaccess Power User's Playbook

📚 What's inside this manual:

18 chapters across 149 pages. Every chapter ends with something written down that you keep.

1. Chapter 1: What one small text file can do to a working site, and how to get it back
2. Chapter 2: Apache, LiteSpeed, Nginx, and finding the file before you write a single rule
3. Chapter 3: How Apache decides which rule wins, and why there is no syntax check to run before you save
4. Chapter 4: Auditing an inherited file block by block, including the lines nobody meant you to see.
5. Chapter 5: One address, one hop, and the certificate check you must never block.
6. Chapter 6: Picking the right status code, the simplest directive, and proving the result in one hop
7. Chapter 7: Building a redirect map that survives the move and the years after it
8. Chapter 8: Rewrites, front controllers, and custom rules that survive the next update
9. Chapter 9: Converting retired access rules into the syntax Apache reads today
10. Chapter 10: The quiet leaks, the rule that closes each one, and the test that proves it
11. Chapter 11: Basic authentication, its two files, its real limits, and the side effects nobody warns you about
12. Chapter 12: What a name-based block really does, how to prove a crawler is genuine, and where AI crawler policy stands in 2026
13. Chapter 13: The referer rules that still earn their keep, and the ones that cost more than they save.
14. Chapter 14: Smaller files on the way out, and a sensible answer to how long the visitor keeps them.
15. Chapter 15: The headers worth sending in 2026, the three to delete on sight, and an order that keeps the site up.
16. Chapter 16: The short directives that quietly decide how a folder answers.
17. Chapter 17: A diagnostic ladder you can climb while the phone is ringing.
18. Chapter 18: One commented file, a maintenance rhythm, and a page the next person can act on