Removing .html extension from url? Benefit for SEO?

[fun52dig]

This post is deleted!

[EGOL]

Gary,

The URLs in your list don't display an extension such as .html or .php because the index file is being displayed.

File extensions can be changed with .htaccess - however, changing file names should not be done unless you have an extremely good reason.  Changing them can result in a decrease in ranking ability.

[fun52dig]

Why is it that many sites that are ranking in the top page of SERP's are not using the .html extension?  It seems that all the experts in the field of SEO are not using them.  Do they know something we don't?

[cfguti]

The benefit of not using the extension .html is that you can change the technology they use without having problems migrating URLs (.php to .html or .jsp to .html...)

With what you are seeing good results may be due to the last page. Html. Php using a CMS that will make life easier and may be striving to others.

Remove the extension can also be benefiting the linking, and you take away an error factor.

[Matthew_Edgar]

One other advantage to no extension on the URL is that those URLs are easier to read and look friendlier in the search results. Obviously, a part of SEO is making those results look as good as possible. Though I've not tested it, my own experience has been that I get more visits to landing pages without extensions from similar keywords.

[JonathanSackheim]

This is a helpful post, thanks!

[KristinaWitmer]

So if a site is moving from a .html URL ending to a simple '/', then does a redirect need to be created? All of the remaining url structure will remain the same.

Thanks!

[Edgar-Cerecerez]

Yes.