How to add .html to URL's

Question

I am building a reasonable size replacement site in EE and will be migrating content from an existing static-built site.

In order to maintain as many inbound and internal links as possible, what is the best way to add .html to URL's?

Due to the number of URL's involved I don't want to have to redirect each one individually in .htaccess. Using .htaccess to strip .html has been suggested. If this is the best method, what would I need to add to .htaccess to achieve this? Are there any drawbacks or negatives to this method?

Answer 1

I haven't tested this either, but I'm not sure @adrienne's htaccess will work. I'd do it like this:

RewriteEngine on

# 301 redirect path.html to just path
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)\.html$ $1 [R=301,L]

# the rest of your rewrite rules (e.g. removing index.php) go here
RewriteCond $1 !\.(gif|jpe?g|png)$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 [L]

To explain the first few lines, first we make sure the requested html file doesn't exist (so we don't break anything), then we use a regular expression to redirect any *.html to * using a 301 (permanent) redirect.

Feel free to edit either of these answers if we're not far off :)

Answer 2

You don't need to redirect them individually in .htaccess; you can do a rewrite to strip .html, as you were told.

Below is a set of directives that should both route whatever.html to /index.php/whatever/ (for EE) and then remove index.php from everything else. This is, however, not tested, so it might require refinement.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.html -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)\.html$ /index.php/$1 [R=301,L]

RewriteCond $1 !\.(gif|jpe?g|png|webp|svgz?|tt.|eot|woff|otf|htc|mp.|m4.|og.|flv)$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 [L]

There shouldn't be any drawbacks or negatives -- it's a tiny amount of extra overhead, but nothing you would ever notice in the scheme of things.

Answer 3

Have you considered using the Pages module? That's another way of looking at it.