Adding .html To Wordpress Site

[kbloemendaal]

I am working on a team (my part is the SEO) where the developer added the .html extension to the permalinks. I don't understand why, on Wordpress, you would do this.

Is there any benefit, or penalty for it as an SEO standpoint?

I usually just set mine up %postname% as the permalink structure, but I am not the web design lead on this project.

I asked the designer why, but he seems to be reluctant to answer any of my emails about his work, (like he is above that or something).

Not wanting to make things worse, I dropped it and thought I would ask here since I saw a few posts in reference to it today in the forum.

Is there an advantage or disadvantage (either way) to using the .html extension on a Wordpress site?

[danbocain]

Nope, either should be fine. The biggest thing to remember is if you change any URL structure, setup 301 redirects to go from the page's old URL to the new URL.

[kbloemendaal]

Then I guess I would ask why? Why would you setup a wordpress (new installation) blog to have .html extension? You have to go out of your way, as the default is to not have it.

Just old school? If there is no benefit, I just wonder why I guess.... but not that it matters much.

[danbocain]

My guess is either developer preference or lack of knowledge. Joomla is the same way. You can have domain.com/about  or domain.com/about.html - both accomplish the same thing, one takes an extra step to do (adding the .HTML suffix.)

I guess if you are coming off of an old static HTML site and moving to a CMS, including the .html would allow you to keep the same URL structures much easier than setting up 100s of redirects.

[AlanMosley]

There is no advanage, but there is disadvanatges.

There s the fact that now you have a 301 redirect to the new url. every 301 redirecte leaks link juice.

there is also the conversion factor, where you really want clear clean data, haveing the .html makes things look that little bit messy.

Most people rewite the other way for this reason, to get rid of the extentions.

Try uising the old url, does it work?

I dont use wopprdpress of develop in php, but php being a server side technology, the webserver will need to know that the page is php. So i assume what the dev has done is rewite the urls, so when .html is used, it rewrites to a url that the web server can understand. When you do a rewite you need to do a 301 redirect from the old url to the new url so that you dont get duplicate contnet, you can not have both redering the same content. UYou also need to change every internal link on the site so that they link directly to the new url, you dont want your internal links going thougth a 301 as they leak link juice, leaking link juice on internal links that you have full control over is an un-necessary waste.

See http://thatsit.com.au/seo/tutorials/friendly-urls-using-url-rewrites-with-iis

This is for Microsoft IIS serrver, but the concept is the same