STUCK with URL Rewriting. Need Help!!!

Friends,

I have a site which has a few dynamic URLs that I want to redirect into static ones. The site is in PHP

Now honestly I know a little less than nothing when it comes to URL Rewriting [in both Apache and IIS] and so I desperately seek your help here.

The URLs that I want to rewrite are like:

http://www.domain.com/file_name.php?id=14

Now this is what I have done:

Using the URL Rewriting tool at SEOchat, I have got a code which looks like:

RewriteRule file_name-id-(.*)\.html$ file_name.php?id=$1

I have placed this code within the htaccess and uploaded it.

Now when I try the page with the new URL I find that the page is opening with it which looks like:

http://www.domain.com/file_name-id-14.php

But when I click on the link on the website navigation menu, the old page still shows up [the dynamic one]

A few questions:

While rewriting URLs, after placing the code, do we need to update the internal linking with the URL of the new pages?

OR

Is there a way by which I can click on the link to the old [dynamic] page and it will be automatically redirected [301 of course] to the new static URL. I am pretty sure there is a way of doing this which I don't know.

So please advise me on what should I do in a step-by-step order while rewriting URLs in APACHE.

Thanks a lot in advance!

I think I should have used a shocking thread title to get attention

Anybody???

Hello Pal!
I have some directory with the same problems. Can you advise me more sites where I will find anything that halp me to rebuild my directory to SEO friendly?

1. Yes, the internal links should point to the new url's.
2. Yes, you should permanently redirect the old url's to the new but not to avoid updating your internal links.