URL Rewriting Best Practices

[TheDude]

Hey Moz!

I’m getting ready to implement URL rewrites on my website to improve site structure/URL readability. More specifically I want to:

• Improve our website structure by removing redundant directories.
• Replace underscores with dashes and remove file extensions for our URLs.

Please see my example below:

Old structure: http://www.widgets.com/widgets/commercial-widgets/small_blue_widget.htm

New structure: https://www.widgets.com/commercial-widgets/small-blue-widget

I've read several URL rewriting guides online, all of which seem to provide similar but overall different methods to do this. I'm looking for what's considered best practices to implement these rewrites. From what I understand, the most common method is to implement rewrites in our .htaccess file using mod_rewrite (which will find the old URLs and rewrite them according to the rewrites I implement).

One question I can't seem to find a definitive answer to is when I implement the rewrite to remove file extensions/replace underscores with dashes in our URLs, do the webpage file names need to be edited to the new format? From what I understand the webpage file names must remain the same for the rewrites in the .htaccess to work. However, our internal links (including canonical links) must be changed to the new URL format. Can anyone shed light on this?

Also, I'm aware that implementing URL rewriting improperly could negatively affect our SERP rankings. If I redirect our old website directory structure to our new structure using this rewrite, are my bases covered in regards to having the proper 301 redirects in place to not affect our rankings negatively?

Please offer any advice/reliable guides to handle this properly.

Thanks in advance!

[TheDude]

Thanks for clearing that up and all of the help!

[DmitriiK]

I'm saying rename files first and do rewrite for removing extensions.

You will have to do rewrite for replacing underscores with hyphens anyway, just for redirect purposes.

So, rename files from underscores to hyphens; do rewrite rule for underscore to hyphens to insure old pages are being redirected; do another rewrite for removing file extensions. In som time (2-3-4 months) when old file names (with underscores) are out of google index, delete first rewrite.

[TheDude]

Hey Dmitrii,

I was planning on using two rewrites.

One rewrite for replacing the underscores with hyphens.

And another rewrite for removing the file extensions.

Just so I fully understand, you recommend implementing the rewrite for replacing the underscores with hyphens in our .htaccess file. Then once the new URLs are indexed, change the webpage file names themselves by replacing the underscores with hyphens, make the newly named files live and remove this rewrite from our .htaccess. Is my understanding correct?

Again...thanks for all of your help!

[DmitriiK]

Well, I thought that's what you were going to do and use rewrite just for deleting file extensions. Honestly, I'd leave file extensions and rename files to hyphens. This way there is no server processing involved.

[TheDude]

Another question just popped into my head...

Once our new website directory structure and URL format has been rewritten, redirected and indexed by search engines, would it make sense to edit the actual webpage file names (replacing the underscores w/ hyphens) and then remove the URL rewrite that replaces the underscores with the hyphens? Or is this not recommended?

[TheDude]

Thanks for the help Dmitrii!

Both the rewrite I posted above and yours for removing file extensions failed to work. However, it seems this one does the trick (taken from the Apache help forums).

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,}\s([^.]+).htm [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,}\s([^.]+).php [NC]
RewriteRule ^ %1 [R,L]

[DmitriiK]

Yes, I believe so, that's the only rewrite you'd need not to mess up rankings.

I don't know if one of codes is better than another. All I know that my piece of code is working and i haven't used the one you wrote. It seems ok to me, but just test it. If it works, I don't think there is any difference.

[TheDude]

Hey Dmitrii,

This rewrite that I posted above...

RewriteRule ^old/(.*)$ /new/$1 [L,R=301]

...isn't intended to remove the file extensions. I'm using it to redirect the old directory structure to our new directory structure.

I was asking if using this rewrite when changing my directory structure will be all I need in regards to having all the necessary redirects in place to not negatively affect our SEO/SERP rankings. Any idea?

Also, would you recommend the rewrite you provided above over the one below when removing file extensions?

RewriteBase /
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html

Let me know if I'm being clear enough Thanks!

[DmitriiK]

the rule you wrote wont work.

What it will do is redirect this: _domain.com/old/small_blue_widget.htm _to this: domain.com/new/small_blue_widget.htm

To remove the extension would be:

<code>RewriteRule ^([^\.]+)$ $1.htm [NC,L]</code>

[TheDude]

Thanks for the response Dmitrii!

Thanks for for confirming that I don't need to update the webpage file names.

Do you know if redirecting the old directories to the new ones (using the the rewrite below) is all I need to do regarding redirects? In other words, when redirecting directories using the rewrite below is there any need to redirect the old URL format (small_blue_widget.htm) to the new (small-blue-widget)? My understanding is no, all I need to do is redirect the directories; but please share your knowledge.Thanks in advance!

<code>RewriteRule ^old/(.*)$ /new/$1 [L,R=301]</code> 

[DmitriiK]

Hi there.

Well, as for best practices - you got it covered - remove/substitute underscores, remove redundant directories, make urls readable and understandable by users, implement redirects for pages, which are being renamed.

As for removing extensions from files - i'm not sure it has any effect on SEO or user experience at all. But no, you don't have to create new format pages. Basically what mod_rewrite does is when somebody requests a page, server says "I gonna server you this file with this name, because you sent me this specific request". Just be aware that there is no way to access both original url and rewritten url at the same time, since it would create duplicate issues.

As for rankings affect - as long as all redirects are done properly and urls are targeting the keywords on the page - you should be fine.