Renaming URLs

I'm new to Apache and I'm having a problem with .htaccess files. I've finally figured out how to redirect an incoming URL for a NON hosted domain (ie. URL) to a hosted site's subfolder (ie. URL).

My problem is that I'd like the user who uses the URL URL to see that address once they hit the hosted site. For example, if I go to URL I end up going to the right location but I see the URL URL I'd like them to see URL and consequently, URL if they take a link to URL

Is there any way to stop or modify this behavior on Apache v1.3?

Don't quite understand you.

>> to see that address once they hit the hosted site
1) What hosted site? In what URL form?

2) What URL form do you want?

3) What URL form you don't want?

4) What should happen when a user goes to http://www.domain.com/ ?

5) What should happen when going to http://www.hosted.com/domain/ ?

6) What should the user sees after typing http://www.domain.com/ in the browser's location bar?

It should show http:/www.domain.com as well as URL for any subfolders or files.

Sorry I wasn't so specific in my last post. Any help you can give is greatly appreciated!

<VirtualHost *>
ServerName www.hosted.com
DocumentRoot /www/htdocs
RewriteEngine on
RewriteOptions inherit
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *>
ServerName www.domain.com
DocumentRoot /www/htdocs/domain
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *>
ServerName www.foobar.com
DocumentRoot /www/htdocs/foobar
</VirtualHost>

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/domain(.*)$
RewriteRule ^/icons/(.+) - [PT,L]
RewriteRule ^domain(.+) http://www.domain.com$1 [R,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/foobar(.*)$
RewriteRule ^/icons/(.+) - [PT,L]
RewriteRule ^foobar(.+) http://www.foobar.com$1 [R,L]

BTW, why do you need to bother to do the redirection at all? If your user has his own domain, he should tell his friends to go to http://www.domain.com in the first place. If someone goes to http://www.hosted.com/domain/, just let them continue, why bother to do the redirection? It's the responsibility of domain.com's owner to tell people to go to www.domain.com.
Doing this kind of external redirection is very inefficient when you have alot of vhosts (20+).

Your reply looks great! Thanks for the detail!

One (possibly dumb) question: Do Virtual Host directives work in .htaccess files or only in httpd.conf?

I don't have access to the httpd.conf with my account. Just curious.

>> Do Virtual Host directives work in .htaccess files

Only in httpd.conf or a file Include'd from httpd.conf.

>> I don't have access to the httpd.conf with my account

Then just add the following line to /www/htdocs/domain/.htaccess:

RedirectMatch 301 ^/domain(.+) http://www.domain.com$1

Do not mkdir a directory named domain at /www/htdocs/domain/domain because there is a looping when requesting http://www.domain.com/domain while http://www.hosted.com/domain should redirect just fine.