Php to html - change in extension

[seoug_2005]

Hello, What is the code to redirect all the pages of a site from .php to .html extension? Thanks

[DanHill]

Add into your htaccess file :

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^(.*).html$ $1.php [L]

Remember you'll need to make sure to change all the links on your site, and all external links too.

The only other way around changing all the links would be to do 301 redirects for each URL which is, in my opinion not really worth all the work involved since .php and .html should both rank equally in Google and other search engines.

[seoug_2005]

Thanks Daniel.

"Remember you'll need to make sure to change all the links on your site, and all external links too."

1. Do you mean i will have to manually change all the internal links on the site ?

Shall i have to do this in the reverse case too ? For example changing  html to php ?

2. For external links, should i contact the webmasters of the site linking to me ?

[DanHill]

1. Yes since the code I gave you will rewrite the extension of every single page FROM php to html.  From html to php would mean the same thing, since a link pointing to products.php would no longer work.  The rewrite only rewrites the extensions and not the links.

2. Yes contacting the webmasters and changing the links would be better than doing 301 redirects of all your pages.

I advise to test this on a testing server first, especially if your site has a lot of pages.

[deltasystems]

Atul,

You definitely don't need to contact webmasters to change any links.

There is a 301 redirect flag you can apply to your rewrite rule:

RewriteRule ^(.*).html$ $1.php [R=301,L]

Do a 301 redirect test to confirm. Best of luck!

[KeriMorgret]

I'd suggest that if you can to not use any extension in the displayed URLs. That way the next time you change languages the URL won't change. As an example, see the SEOmoz URLs -- it's just http://www.seomoz.org/q/php-to-html-change-in-extension with no extension.

I don't know the code offhand for that, but I'm sure others can help you out with that.

[seoug_2005]

Thanks a lot daniel for your advice.

[seoug_2005]

Hello Zachary,

Where should i enter the line mentioned by you ? After the code provided by Daniel ?

Will it redirect all the external links ?

[seoug_2005]

I agree with you not to use any extension and will be looking for a code for this purpose.