If I want clean up my URLs and take the "www.site.com/page.html" and make it "www.site.com/page" do I need a redirect?

[Booj]

If I want clean up my URLs and take the "www.site.com/page.html" and make it "www.site.com/page" do I need a redirect?

If this scenario requires a 301 redirect no matter what, I might as well update the URL to be a little more keyword rich for the page while I'm at it. However, since these pages are ranking well I'd rather not lose any authority in the process and keep the URL just stripped of the ".html" (if that's possible). Thanks for you help!

[edited for formatting]

[Booj]

Thanks so much! I really appreciate it.

[Bryan_Loconto]

Yes, I would highly suggest creating 301 rewrites here. Like Travis said, search engines "may" be smart enough to understand that the new pages (without the .html ext) should redirect to the new site.com/page.

But I would play it safe and create the redirects from the get go.

[Travis_Bailey]

You would get a 404 if you didn't employ the proper URL rewrites at the server level. Unless search engines have become smart enough to understand common extensions of a URL and attribute any possible link equity to the proper URL - then yes - you may likely need a 301 instead of rewrites.

Full disclosure: I've gone extensionless for years. I have never studied this particular case.