title: .htaccess RewriteRule to path without changing URL
body: <p>So, I've this problem:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Base Website located at <code>http://example.com/</code></li>
  <li>Second Website located at <code>http://example.com/web2/</code> </li>
  <li>People making various requests to the second website like
  <code>http://example.com/myWeb/pg1</code> and <code>http://example.com/web2/pg2</code></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Recently and due to some other issues I need to have a custom new path for the second website but also keep the first one working.</p>
  
  <p>The ideia is to allow users to access the second website over the two following addresses:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><code>http://example.com/web2/</code> </li>
  <li><code>http://example.com/alternative-url-web2/</code></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>The folder <code>/web2/</code> actually exists on the server, but how can I simulate the folder <code>/alternative-url-web2/</code> and "redirect" the requests to <code>/web2/</code>?</p>
  
  <p>Please note I don't want the URL on the browser to change, this must be a "silent redirect". And I also make sure that all other requests like <code>http://example.com/other</code> are not redirected by the second website.</p>
  
  <p>Thank you.</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p><strong>Update</strong>:</p>
  
  <p>According to @anubhava I could simply solve this issue by adding in my <code>.htaccess</code>:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteBase /
  RewriteRule ^alternative-url-web2(/.*|)$ /web2$1 [L,NC]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This is probably working fine but I noticed the following:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><code>http://ex.com/alternative-url-web2</code> is redirected to <code>http://ex.com/web2/</code> (changing browser URL);</li>
  <li><code>http://ex.com/alternative-url-web2/</code> is redirected to <code>http://ex.com/</code>(changing browser URL);      </li>
  <li><code>http://ex.com/alternative-url-web2/someRequest</code> works fine and does NOT change the browser URL;</li>
  <li><code>http://ex.com/alternative-url-web2/index.php</code> works fine and does NOT change the browser URL;</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p><strong>Site Note:</strong></p>
  
  <p>At <code>/web2/</code> there's an <code>.htaccess</code> that <em>might</em> be cause the wired redirect behavior above... So here is the file contents:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;IfModule mod_rewrite.c&gt;
      RewriteEngine On
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -l [OR]
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
      RewriteRule ^.*$ - [NC,L]
      RewriteRule ^(data/|js/|styles/|install/|favicon\.ico|crossdomain\.xml|robots\.txt) - [NC,L]
      RewriteRule ^.*$ index.php [NC,L]
  &lt;/IfModule&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Can the internal RewriteRule to <code>index.php</code> be causing all this? If yes, how can I fix it?</p>