All static pages on HTML website - URL's end with .html - Is this bad?

XrumerGeek · Oct 6, 2024

At present, on a HTML website I have created, all my URL's end in .html, and the pages don't load without it.

How much of an issue does this cause? Thinking in terms of best practices.

I figured I could edit .htaccess to make sure nobody misses the page by omitting the .html using something like;

Code:

RewriteRule ^page1$ /page1.html? [L,R=301]

I would do this for each and every page. Time spent is not a factor, as there are only 33 pages on-site and any additionals will be few and far between in the future, if any.

Thoughts on this? Or can someone explain a better solution.

Thank you.

praetserge · Oct 6, 2024

It doesn't really matter if your pages end with .html or not as long as the address is entered correctly.
Nowadays, it's rare to see those pages but I think it's just for simplicity.

CBTx1337 · Oct 6, 2024

I wouldn't necessarily conclude it's bad, but one could make an argument that it looks "dated" or "unprofessional".

On the other hand, who is gonna manually type your pages and thus 404 because they didn't type ".html"? Probably no one. In that sense, I wouldn't worry.

If you wanna go the .htaccess route, you don't need to do it manually. You can just do this:

Code:

RewriteEngine On

# Check if the requested URL corresponds to a .html file
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f

# Rewrite the URL to serve the .html file
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html [L]

If you're using NGINX, you could do something like this in the actual server configuration instead:

Code:

location / {
    # Try to serve the file without .html, then fall back to adding .html
    try_files $uri $uri.html =404;
}

Hope this helps.

XrumerGeek · Oct 6, 2024

CBTx1337 said:
RewriteEngine On # Check if the requested URL corresponds to a .html file RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f # Rewrite the URL to serve the .html file RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html [L]

Legend, that worked a treat. Am I looking at potential duplicate content though as with this solution it seems that the page works without .html - and the browser doesn't show .html. So are there now two versions (.html and non .html) serving the same content or is it seen as one? Or am I misunderstanding this aspect?

Hearing your point also about it potentially looking dated and oldhat.

M4DM4X · Oct 6, 2024

I use python scripts that build html pages with html extensions and there is no special problem about this, pages index well.

CBTx1337 · Oct 6, 2024

XrumerGeek said:
Am I looking at potential duplicate content though as with this solution it seems that the page works without .html - and the browser doesn't show .html. So are there now two versions (.html and non .html) serving the same content or is it seen as one?

The rule I've given you will rewrite links with no .html in them if a file with .html exists, but you will still be able to access them with .html. If that counts for duplicate, then yes.

If you want to have just the extension-less version, you can do something like this:

Code:

RewriteEngine On

# Redirect direct .html requests to the extension-less URL
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} "\.html" [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)\.html$ /$1 [R=301,L]

# Allow access to .html files only without the extension
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html [L]

I don't have an Apache server running to test this right now, but it should in theory:

Serve test.html when the user goes to /test
Redirect /test.html to /test with 301 Permanently Moved so that you don't have this "duplication"

I think that second bit is important if you have good search placement, etc.

Hope this helps.

XrumerGeek · Oct 6, 2024

M4DM4X said:
I use python scripts that build html pages with html extensions and there is no special problem about this, pages index well.

I assume that any link juice will flow also because of the redirect - so it won't matter if people link to .html or no html - similar to 301'ing a domain.

XrumerGeek · Oct 6, 2024

CBTx1337 said:
The rule I've given you will rewrite links with no .html in them if a file with .html exists, but you will still be able to access them with .html. If that counts for duplicate, then yes.

If you want to have just the extension-less version, you can do something like this:

Code:

RewriteEngine On # Redirect direct .html requests to the extension-less URL RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} "\.html" [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)\.html$ /$1 [R=301,L] # Allow access to .html files only without the extension RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html [L]

I don't have an Apache server running to test this right now, but it should in theory:

Serve test.html when the user goes to /test

Redirect /test.html to /test with 301 Permanently Moved so that you don't have this "duplication"

I think that second bit is important if you have good search placement, etc.

Hope this helps.

This looks good, will test this tomorrow and report back. Thanks for the help, and welcome to the forum. You'll be an asset.

All static pages on HTML website - URL's end with .html - Is this bad?

XrumerGeek

Supreme Member

praetserge

Elite Member

CBTx1337

Newbie

XrumerGeek

Supreme Member

M4DM4X

Elite Member

CBTx1337

Newbie

XrumerGeek

Supreme Member

XrumerGeek

Supreme Member

Main Menu

Marketplace

Making Money

BlackHat World