Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. Converting files from .html to .php or editing .htaccess file

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Converting files from .html to .php or editing .htaccess file

    Technical SEO
    7
    11
    5041
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • JohnHerrigel
      JohnHerrigel last edited by

      Good day all,

      I have a bunch of files that are .html and I want to add some .php to them.

      It seems my 2 options are

      1. Convert .html to .php and 301 redirect

      or

      1. add this line of code to my .htaccess file and keep all files that are .html as .html

      AddType application/x-httpd-php .html

      My gut is that the 2nd way is better so as  not alter any SEO rankings, but wanted to see if anybody had any experience with this line of code in their .htaccess file as definitely don't wan to mess up my entire site 🙂

      Thanks for any help!

      John

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • donford
        donford last edited by

        Hi John

        The first line removes the extension

        The second line adds them back in a specific order IE you want PHP to execute first.

        If you got it going that is what counts.

        Good luck,

        Don

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • JohnHerrigel
          JohnHerrigel @donford last edited by

          Thanks so much for this Don.. this is what I added that seemed to work for my server

          AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .html .htm

          As the AddType caused errors but doing  some further research I found the above code.

          I wonder if what you propose would accomplish what I did?

          Thanks and all the best,

          John

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • donford
            donford last edited by

            Hi John,

            If the URL's are well indexed and doing well, you "may" not want to change the url. To simply add the ability to run php first you can do it very easily with just what you thought, .htaccess

            In fact when I took over as webmaster on my corporate site which was indexed very well I had to do just that.

            Add this to your .htaccess file:

            RemoveHandler .html .htm
            AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .htm .html

            JohnHerrigel 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Highland
              Highland @JohnHerrigel last edited by

              If you really want to go this route, add this to your site .htaccess

              RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} !-d
              RewriteRule ^([^.]+)$ $1.html [NC,L]

              So domain.com/file will access file.html

              Again, the caveat is there is a short term SEO hit for doing this. Long term, you should be fine.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • JohnHerrigel
                JohnHerrigel @KeriMorgret last edited by

                This is a sweet idea.. any tutorial on this? How does it effect existing links directed at the .html and .php pages?

                Thanks Keri!

                Highland 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • KeriMorgret
                  KeriMorgret last edited by

                  Have you considered just rewriting your URLs so they don't use extensions at all? That way, when you use a different technology, you don't need to rewrite your URLs once again. If you look at SEOmoz, you see they don't use .php or .html as extensions, but instead have no extensions.

                  JohnHerrigel 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • jpgprinting
                    jpgprinting last edited by

                    I did option 1 on one of my websites some time ago and works fine, rankings are the same. Takes about 2 moth to get the same visits on all the links again.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • SteveGerencser
                      SteveGerencser last edited by

                      We use the AddType function all the time when updating websites. It's far easier to do that that to recreate everything and redirect it.

                      It allows all of your internal navigation to remain as is and it keeps all of your inbound links from becoming redirected links. Also, remember that it has been announced that 301 redirected links lose value over time so this is another reason to not do it the hard way.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • kdaly100
                        kdaly100 last edited by

                        Just make sure that you don't redirect all HTML files.  I suspect that either way is equal.  What you are telling in either case i

                        "Hi Google we have moved but don't worry we have moved here"

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • Highland
                          Highland last edited by

                          I would pick #2, where you process .html files with PHP. Changing URLs involves taking a temporary SEO hit and I would not recommend doing it.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • 1 / 1
                          • First post
                            Last post

                          Got a burning SEO question?

                          Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                          Start my free trial


                          Browse Questions

                          Explore more categories

                          • Moz Tools

                            Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                          • SEO Tactics

                            Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                          • Community

                            Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                          • Digital Marketing

                            Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                          • Research & Trends

                            Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                          • Support

                            Connect on product support and feature requests.

                          • See all categories

                          Related Questions

                          • ellenu

                            HTML entity characters in meta descriptions

                            Is it okay to leave HTML entity characters, such as " in meta descriptions? Will search engines translate these appropriately?

                            Technical SEO | | ellenu
                            0
                          • acktivate

                            Why add .html to WordPress pages?

                            A site I may take over has a plugin that adds .html to the pages. I searched online but I’ve only found how to add it rather than why to add it. Is it needed? If I remove it, I’ll have to be careful with SEO / indexed pages and redirects.  The site is running 3.x.x and 90% of the plugins have not been updated in over 5 years including this one. Before I update to 4.7.x, I am trying to understand the landscape (pros / cons) on why something could be used and if I need to find a suitable replacement for it.

                            Technical SEO | | acktivate
                            2
                          • sjbridle

                            Do I need a separate robots.txt file for my shop subdomain?

                            Hello Mozzers! Apologies if this question has been asked before, but I couldn't find an answer so here goes... Currently I have one robots.txt file hosted at https://www.mysitename.org.uk/robots.txt We host our shop on a separate subdomain https://shop.mysitename.org.uk Do I need a separate robots.txt file for my subdomain? (Some Google searches are telling me yes and some no and I've become awfully confused!

                            Technical SEO | | sjbridle
                            0
                          • kirmeliux

                            Removing CSS & JS Files from Index

                            Hi, Google has indexed a few .CSS and .JS files that belong to our WordPress plugins and themes. I had them blocked via robots, but realized this doesn't prevent indexation (and can likely hurt us since Google wants to access these files). I've since removed the robots instructions, submitted a removal request via Search Console, but want to make sure they don't come back. Is there a way to put a noindex tag within .CSS and .JS files? Or should I do something with .htaccess instead?

                            Technical SEO | | kirmeliux
                            1
                          • inlinear

                            Correct linking to the /index of a site and subfolders: what's the best practice? link to: domain.com/ or domain.com/index.html ?

                            Dear all, starting with my .htaccess file: RewriteEngine On
                            RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.inlinear.com$ [NC]
                            RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://inlinear.com/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.html 
                            RewriteRule ^(.)index.html$ http://inlinear.com/ [R=301,L] 1. I redirect all URL-requests with www. to the non www-version...
                            2. all requests with "index.html" will be redirected to "domain.com/" My questions are: A) When linking from a page to my frontpage (home) the best practice is?: "http://domain.com/" the best and NOT: "http://domain.com/index.php" B) When linking to the index of a subfolder "http://domain.com/products/index.php" I should link also to: "http://domain.com/products/" and not put also the index.php..., right? C) When I define the canonical ULR, should I also define it just: "http://domain.com/products/" or in this case I should link to the definite file: "http://domain.com/products**/index.php**" Is A) B) the best practice? and C) ? Thanks for all replies! 🙂
                            Holger

                            Technical SEO | | inlinear
                            0
                          • NicDale

                            Is there any value in having a blank robots.txt file?

                            I've read an audit where the writer recommended creating and uploading a blank robots.txt file, there was no current file in place.  Is there any merit in having a blank robots.txt file? What is the minimum you would include in a basic robots.txt file?

                            Technical SEO | | NicDale
                            0
                          • healthgrades

                            How can I find my Webmaster Tools HTML file?

                            So, totally amateur hour here, but I can't for the life of me find our HTML verification file for webmaster tools. I see nowhere to look at it in Google Webmaster Tools console, I tried a site:, I googled it, all the info out there is about how to verify a site. Ours is verified, but I need the verification file code to sync up with the Google API and no one seems to have it. Any thoughts?

                            Technical SEO | | healthgrades
                            0
                          • kchandler

                            Robots.txt File Redirects to Home Page

                            I've been doing some site analysis for a new SEO client and it has been brought to my attention that their robots.txt file redirects to their homepage. I was wondering: Is there a benfit to setup your robots.txt file to do this? Will this effect how their site will get indexed? Thanks for your response! Kyle Site URL: http://www.radisphere.net/

                            Technical SEO | | kchandler
                            0

                          Get started with Moz Pro!

                          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                          Start my free trial
                          Products
                          • Moz Pro
                          • Moz Local
                          • Moz API
                          • Moz Data
                          • STAT
                          • Product Updates
                          Moz Solutions
                          • SMB Solutions
                          • Agency Solutions
                          • Enterprise Solutions
                          Free SEO Tools
                          • Domain Authority Checker
                          • Link Explorer
                          • Keyword Explorer
                          • Competitive Research
                          • Brand Authority Checker
                          • Local Citation Checker
                          • MozBar Extension
                          • MozCast
                          Resources
                          • Blog
                          • SEO Learning Center
                          • Help Hub
                          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                          • How-to Guides
                          • Moz Academy
                          • API Docs
                          About Moz
                          • About
                          • Team
                          • Careers
                          • Contact
                          Why Moz
                          • Case Studies
                          • Testimonials
                          Get Involved
                          • Become an Affiliate
                          • MozCon
                          • Webinars
                          • Practical Marketer Series
                          • MozPod
                          Connect with us

                          Contact the Help team

                          Join our newsletter
                          Moz logo
                          © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                          • Accessibility
                          • Terms of Use
                          • Privacy

                          Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.