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Maybe I am missing something, but wouldn't a rewrite that removes all the .php instances solve this problem site-wide? Or are you doing it file by file and leaving some pages as-is? Something like this in your .htaccess should do it: to remove php: RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php or to change to htm site-wide: RewriteEngine on RewriteBase / RewriteRule ^([^.]+).htm$ $1.php [L] Another way is to name the files with .htm and use this in htaccess to send htm through your PHP handler: AddType application/x-httpd-php htm html php AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .htm .html If you use rewrites like those, you won't be able to also use 301s for the affected URIs as it would probably create a redirect loop. In a perfect world, you should 301 redirect any page that changes if you stop using the php to htm rewrites. If there are simply too many for this to be practical, you could just redirect the most important pages and leave out any that may not have very many inbound links pointing to it. What I will often do in cases like this is set up the redirects for the important pages, then keep an eye on Google Webmaster Tools. Webmaster Tools will show you the 404 errors and where they found the links. Then you can pick the ones that have a lot of links and 301 those a few at a time. Tedious, but if you do that in your spare time, eventually you will get them all fixed. If you can implement a "set it and forget it" rewrite so you don't have to add a new rewrite for each file, you won't have to worry about 301 redirecting all those old pages. Otherwise, there really shouldn't be any major loss of rank from dropping the file types. All that said, there isn't much of a reason to remove the file type extensions, other than to shorten addresses by a few characters and just look a little cleaner.

Whether or not you get penalised or banned from social bookmarking sites will depend on how you use the automated software.  Many social bookmarking sites state in their terms and conditions that you're not allowed to automate the submission of links.  Others don't state that, but still reserve the right to ban accounts they feel are a misuse of their service. In terms of whether search engines will penaise your sites - I think it depends on how many other valuable incoming links you already have.  If all your links come from social bookmarking sites you're not likely to see much of a boost to SERP rankings.

Thanks Ryan, I've heard of drupal but never dealt with it  - do you have any idea what software runs SEOmoz's Q&A or, for example, this site: http://www.incorporationanswers.org/ ? Thanks again

Hi mynewco, To develop effective FAQ software, try one of the following links if you haven’t already: HotScripts – search various scripts of PHP, ASP, JavaScript, and more PHP FAQ Manager – uses PHP5 and MySQL to store questions and answers; supports recording of FAQs and a simple search interface These items have scripts and software for FAQ functionality and are customizable for various specifications. Check them out!