.htaccess file and pretty urls

Yugioh

I'm currently altering a website and I was hoping to give it 'pretty urls' in order to make it better for SEO and because it looks nicer.

The only change to the .htaccess file I wish to do is to simply remove the .html so that for example

'www.website.ie/contactus.html' shows 'www.website.ie/contactus'.

I've tried google to assist me but every bit of code I've put into my .htaccess file hasn't worked. Can anyone help?

dlofnep

Yugioh wrote: »

I'm currently altering a website and I was hoping to give it 'pretty urls' in order to make it better for SEO and because it looks nicer.

The only change to the .htaccess file I wish to do is to simply remove the .html so that for example

'www.website.ie/contactus.html' shows 'www.website.ie/contactus'.

I've tried google to assist me but every bit of code I've put into my .htaccess file hasn't worked. Can anyone help?

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/mod/mod_rewrite.html

For anything that is going to be complex, that's the way to go.

dlofnep

This will help you also: http://www.iwebtool.com/htaccess_url_rewrite

komodosp

Hilarious

I would have always just put an "index.html" file inside the contactus/ directory but yeah using a mod_rewrite probably gives a lot better flexibility.

adm

wouldnt bother. removing .html will not help seo. only things like ? and & in url might affect seo.

oeb

Off the top of my head, this should do it. (Make sure to test it first, this is just off the top of my head, and I have not actually tested it here first)

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine On
    
    
    RewriteBase /
    

    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-F
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteRule (.*)/$ /$1.html [L,NC]
</IfModule>

That should check to see if a folder exists, and if it does not, load up /<FOLDER-NAME>.html.

Keep in mind that you will need to modify all your calls for images, javascripts and links to use absolute URLs rather than relative ones. (IE /css/style.css rather than css/style.css)