The ability to rewrite URLs gives us a number of different abilities within NGINX. First and foremost, we can display neat URLs to the end user when we have a dynamically driven system such as WordPress. For example, instead of trying to remember index.php?page_id=124, we can simply use /about/.
Secondly, when we move content, change platforms, or update a system, we want to make sure all the old URLs still work. This is especially important for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), as well as for anyone who has your old page bookmarked.
In this chapter, we'll run through a number of recipes describing how to activate all of the common rewrites and also describing a few of these rewrites to provide great flexibility.
