Move from Catalog to root keeping page name -catalog

[Rachael w.]

I did search the forums for this, but I didnt find an answer to my question. I thought I'd just ask. Perhaps someone can help me.

 

 

I plan to move one of my sites to the root folder. Using the same database links, pages etc. The only thing that will be changing is this www.xxx.com/catalog to www.xxx.com

 

I have moved before with newer sites, and moving from test server to active and so on so the configuration files arent an issue for me.

 

What I would like to know is this. Is there a way to use htacess to strip the "catalog" from any url requested? More or less, it would automatically open the root page rather than general redirecting from the catalog folder.

 

I have over 30,000 pages indexed on this site and I dont want to lose customers clicking in on old links.

 

I would like someone clicking on this link: www.xxx.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=8866 to be redirected to this www.xxx.com/product_info.php?products_id=8866. Like I said, to have the catalog portion dropped automatically. Not just a redirect to the index page of the new site.

 

Can this be done with htacess? Or am I dreaming?

 

Thanks for your help!