What are the best practices for handling URL rewriting in PHP?

URL rewriting in PHP is commonly used to create clean and user-friendly URLs for websites. One of the best practices for handling URL rewriting in PHP is to use the mod_rewrite module in Apache to rewrite URLs in the .htaccess file. This allows you to map user-friendly URLs to actual PHP files or scripts on the server, improving SEO and user experience.

```php
// Example of URL rewriting in .htaccess file
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^blog/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)$ blog.php?slug=$1 [L]
```

In this example, any URL that matches the pattern "blog/[slug]" will be rewritten to "blog.php?slug=[slug]". This allows you to have clean and user-friendly URLs while still serving the appropriate content from the server.