Will changing page extensions from .html to .php require a redirect?
-
Hi.
We are launching a new website and our .html page extensions will be replaced with a .php page extension.
Example: www.theideapeople.com/web_design.html (current url)
www.theideapeople.com/web_design.php (new url)
Will this require any special treatment to maintain the page SEO ranking? Does it make a difference if you use a .html or .php? Thank you for your help and insight!
Jay
-
You might also consider writing the redirect so that you don't have any extensions (see the SEOmoz URL for an example). That way, whenever you next change technologies, your URL will still stay the same.
-
You're welcome, but please keep in mind that 301 redirects have an inherent loss of PageRank, even though it's quite small - no loss is better than some!
-
Thank you all very much for your help and answers. It is very much appreciated!!
-
Good stuff, thank you for taking the time to help!
-
Nice catch. I agree it should be:
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^(.*).html$ $1.php [R=301] -
The better solution is to keep the .html extensions but tell Apache to parse them as though they were php. This is easily done in .htaccess:
AddType application/x-httpd-php .htm .html
I do this with pretty much all of my sites because real .html files are still served fine, and when there is php code it is executed as it would be with a .php file.
-
Will that return a 301 header though? Shouldn't it include "R=301"?
-
If you are doing this to all pages on the site you can knock it out with an htaccess file like this:
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^(.*).html$ $1.php [NC] -
Hi Jay,
The two will be viewed as entirely different pages. You will need to 301 redirect all .html pages to the .php version.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
301 redirect from dynamic url to static page
Hi, i want to redirect from this old link http://www.g-store.gr/product_info.php?products_id=1735/ to this one https://www.g-store.gr/golf-toualetas.html I have done several attempts but with no result. I anyone can help i will appreciate. My website runs in an Apache server with cpanel. Thank you
Technical SEO | | alstam0 -
Why are my 301 redirects and duplicate pages (with canonicals) still showing up as duplicates in Webmaster Tools?
My guess is that in time Google will realize that my duplicate content is not actually duplicate content, but in the meantime I'd like to get your guys feedback. The reporting in Webmaster Tools looks something like this. Duplicates /url1.html /url2.html /url3.html /category/product/url.html /category2/product/url.html url3.html is the true canonical page in the list above._ url1.html,_ and url2.html are old URLs that 301 to url3.html. So, it seems my bases are covered there. _/category/product/url.html _and _/category2/product/url.html _ do not redirect. They are the same page as url3.html. Each of the category URLs has a canonical URL of url3.html in the header. So, it seems my bases are covered there as well. Can I expect Google to pick up on this? Why wouldn't it understand this already?
Technical SEO | | bearpaw0 -
Is it better to use XXX.com or XXX.com/index.html as canonical page
Is it better to use 301 redirects or canonical page? I suspect canonical is easier. The question is, which is the best canonical page, YYY.com or YYY.com/indexhtml? I assume YYY.com, since there will be many other pages such as YYY.com/info.html, YYY.com/services.html, etc.
Technical SEO | | Nanook10 -
Effect of 302 redirects from empty parent page to sub page
A client's website has links to their service pages which then redirect (302 through a php "Location:" header) to that service's first sub-page. For example, our-services/service-x redirects to our-services/service-x/about-service-x I can only think this has been done because there is no actual content for the parent page and to maintain some kind of structure for navigation and URLs. Really there's no reason why the 'about-service-x' page can't be removed and its content transferred to the main 'service-x' page. Then the redirects can be removed also - it's not how a 302 should be used for a start. I'm just wondering what kind of effect this current redirection has on SEO, as I know 302s don't pass any link juice? Thanks for your help.
Technical SEO | | driftingbass0 -
2 links on home page to each category page ..... is page rank being watered down?
I am working on a site that has a home page containing 2 links to each category page. One of the links is a text link and one link is an image link. I think I'm right in thinking that Google will only pay attention to the anchor text/alt text of the first link that it spiders with the anchor text/alt text of the second being ignored. This is not my question however. My question is about the page rank that is passed to each category page..... Because of the double links on the home page, my reckoning is that PR is being divided up twice as many times as necessary. Am I also right in thinking that if Google ignore the 2nd identical link on a page only one lot of this divided up PR will be passed to each category page rather than 2 lots ..... hence horribly watering down the 'link juice' that is being passed to each category page?? Please help me win this argument with a developer and improve the ranking potential of the category pages on the site 🙂
Technical SEO | | QubaSEO0 -
Will frequently adding and frequently removing pages from my site hinder any SEO?
Hi Guys, Just looking through our crawl diagnositcs and we have a ton errors, well over 5000 actually, on 404 pages that cannot be accessed. Our website runs a lot of "Hot Offers" that are time bound, so they expire at the end of each month and we remove the page via our CMS. It's making the crawl diagnositcs loook bad, but will this be hindering our seo and Google 'stuff' because they are finding thousands of 404 errors? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Website: www.vospers.com Lee Greenhill
Technical SEO | | lee_greenhill0 -
Redesign an SEO-Disaster | Help with Redirects of Gray Hat Pages
Hi gang. I'm a new SEO and I'm currently working on the redesign of a website. I have just discovered a ton of hidden pages that are filled with duplicate content, basically reiterating the main keyword in a variety of different variations. Each page is titled with the variation on the keyword phrase and then has one paragraph of text very similar to the previous page, etc. Here is an example of one of the offensive pages (nice lookin' site, eh?): http://www.vasectomy-reversals.com/vasectomy_reversal_surgery.html The new site will not have any of these pages. I'm writing the 301 redirects now and want to redirect these offensive pages to the most relevant page on the new site. But, I'm afraid to redirect the offensive pages. Should I leave them alone, or can I have the former developer remove them? Help. Don't know how to handle these pages and their redirects. Thanks for your help! ~ Mills
Technical SEO | | Mills0 -
How do I fix Duplicate Content/Title going to memberlist.php page?
I have over 6,000 duplicate title and duplicate content errors going to this link: http://community.mautofied.com/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=100299 How do I fix this?
Technical SEO | | mautofied0