301 Redirect

I'm trying to set up a .htaccess redirect for a site I've inherited. It used to use php and strings - now it is straight xhtml.

The previous web address would be:
www.somesite.com/home_state.php?page=careers

The new address is:
www.somesite.com/careers.html

Everything I try for the 301 redirect goes to a 404 error.

For example:
Redirect 301 /home_state.php?page=careers http://somesite.com/careers.html

What else might I need in the .htaccess to make this work?

If you are getting the 404 error message you will have to check the apache server logs for the exact error message.

this is not sufficient code for htaccess file you have to write proper code and you can find very easily on the web. Just try once.

Thank you "thewebhostingdi" - the first error was that Shell was not enabled. I did that with the hosting company.

The next step was creating the right code. What I was looking for was not easily explained on any website that I could find. I had a dozen bookmarked links, none of which clearly explained what I needed. However, here is the solution - just in case others would use this post to learn:

First, make sure that this is included:

Code:

---

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

---

Next, this piece of code will redirect all exact site name changes such as
www.somesite.com/home_state.php?page=careers
to www.somesite.com/careers.html

Code:

---

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} page=(.+)
RewriteRule ^home_state\.php http://somesite.com/%1.html? [R=permanent,L]

---

For renamed redirects, use individual code like this:

Code:

---

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} page=products1
RewriteRule ^home_state\.php http://somesite.com/products.html? [R=permanent,L]

---

The above code would redirect www.somesite.com/home_state.php?page=products1 to www.somesite.com/products.html