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.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • 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. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. 6 .htaccess Rewrites: Remove index.html, Remove .html, Force non-www, Force Trailing Slash

    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.

    6 .htaccess Rewrites: Remove index.html, Remove .html, Force non-www, Force Trailing Slash

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    3
    4
    12102
    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.
    • NeatIT
      NeatIT last edited by

      i've to give some information about my website Environment

      1. i have static webpage in the root.

      2. Wordpress installed in sub-dictionary www.domain.com/blog/

      3. I have two .htaccess , one in the root and one in the wordpress
      folder.

      i want to

      • www to non on all URLs
      • Remove index.html from url
      • Remove all .html extension / Re-direct 301 to url
        without .html extension
      • Add trailing slash to the static webpages / Re-direct 301 from non-trailing slash
      • Force trailing slash to the Wordpress Webpages / Re-direct 301 from non-trailing slash

      Some examples

      domain.tld/index.html >> domain.tld/

      domain.tld/file.html >> domain.tld/file/

      domain.tld/file.html/ >> domain.tld/file/

      domain.tld/wordpress/post-name >> domain.tld/wordpress/post-name/

      My code in ROOT htaccess is

      <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews

      RewriteEngine On
      RewriteBase /

      #removing trailing slash
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
      RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ $1 [R=301,L]

      #www to non
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.(([a-z0-9_]+.)?domain.com)$ [NC]
      RewriteRule .? http://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

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

      #index redirect
      RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index.html\ HTTP/
      RewriteRule ^index.html$ http://domain.com/ [R=301,L]
      RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} .html
      RewriteRule ^(.*).html$ /$1 [R=301,L]</ifmodule>

      The above code do

      1. redirect www to non-www
      2. Remove trailing slash at the end (if exists)
      3. Remove index.html
      4. Remove all .html
      5. Redirect 301 to filename but doesn't add trailing slash at the end

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

        #index redirect
        RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index.html\ HTTP/
        RewriteRule ^index.html$ http://domain.com/ [R=301,L]
        RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} .html
        RewriteRule ^(.*).html$ /$1 [R=301,L]

        hi anyone please help I use this code but now getting 404 error. please help.

        i also remove this code again but still same issue.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • NeatIT
          NeatIT @Tom-Anthony last edited by

          Hi Tom,

          thanks for your reply.

          i have some problems

          the above code doesn't

          1 - Add trailing slash to the static webpages / Re-direct 301 from non-trailing slash

          so it should be http://ghadaalsaman.com/articles/ instead of http://ghadaalsaman.com/articles

          2 - Force trailing slash to the Wordpress Webpages / Re-direct 301 from non-trailing slash

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Tom-Anthony
            Tom-Anthony last edited by

            Hey NeatIT!

            I see you have a working solution there. Did you have a specific question about the setup?

            I did notice that your setup cane sometimes result in chaining 301 redirects, which is one area for possible improvement.

            Let me know how we can help! 🙂

            NeatIT 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • 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

            • SeoBlogs61

              Moving site from www to non www and also hosting to vps what will be the effect?

              shared hosting to vps www to non www

              Hi SEO gurus,
              I am trying to move my site from shared hosting to VPS hosting and also moving from www to non www version.
              What is the best possible way to avoid any issue and without losing the backlinks.
              Is it good or bad to do? URL: https://buylikesservices.com/

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SeoBlogs61
              0
            • JCN-SBWD

              Should I disable the indexing of tags in Wordpress?

              Hi, I have a client that is publishing 7 or 8 news articles and posts each month. I am optimising selected posts and I have found that they have been adding a lot of tags (almost like using hashtags) . There are currently 29 posts but already 55 tags, each of which has its own archive page, and all of which are added to the site map to be indexed (https://sykeshome.europe.sykes.com/sitemap_index.xml). I came across an article (https://crunchify.com/better-dont-use-wordpress-tags/) that suggested that tags add no value to SEO ranking, and as a consequence Wordpress tags should not be indexed or included in the sitemap. I haven't been able to find much more reliable information on this topic, so my question is - should I get rid of the tags from this website and make the focus pages, posts and categories (redirecting existing tag pages back to the site home page)? It is a relatively new websites and I am conscious of the fact that category and tag archive pages already substantially outnumber actual content pages (posts and news) - I guess this isn't optimal. I'd appreciate any advice. Thanks wMfojBf

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JCN-SBWD
              0
            • AMHC

              Removing duplicate content

              Due to URL changes and parameters on our ecommerce sites, we have a massive amount of duplicate pages indexed by google, sometimes up to 5 duplicate pages with different URLs. 1. We've instituted canonical tags site wide. 2. We are using the parameters function in Webmaster Tools. 3. We are using 301 redirects on all of the obsolete URLs 4. I have had many of the pages fetched so that Google can see and index the 301s and canonicals. 5. I created HTML sitemaps with the duplicate URLs, and had Google fetch and index the sitemap so that the dupes would get crawled and deindexed. None of these seems to be terribly effective. Google is indexing pages with parameters in spite of the parameter (clicksource) being called out in GWT. Pages with obsolete URLs are indexed in spite of them having 301 redirects. Google also appears to be ignoring many of our canonical tags as well, despite the pages being identical. Any ideas on how to clean up the mess?

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AMHC
              0
            • EnvoyWeb

              Duplicate Content www vs. non-www and best practices

              I have a customer who had prior help on his website and I noticed a 301 redirect in his .htaccess Rule for duplicate content removal : www.domain.com vs domain.com RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^MY-CUSTOMER-SITE.com [NC]
              RewriteRule (.*) http://www.MY-CUSTOMER-SITE.com/$1 [R=301,L,NC] The result of this rule is that i type MY-CUSTOMER-SITE.com in the browser and it redirects to www.MY-CUSTOMER-SITE.com I wonder if this is causing issues in SERPS.  If I have some inbound links pointing to www.MY-CUSTOMER-SITE.com and some pointing to MY-CUSTOMER-SITE.com, I would think that this rewrite isn't necessary as it would seem that Googlebot is smart enough to know that these aren't two sites. -----Can you comment on whether this is a best practice for all domains?
              -----I've run a report for backlinks.  If my thought is true that there are some pointing to www.www.MY-CUSTOMER-SITE.com and some to the www.MY-CUSTOMER-SITE.com, is there any value in addressing this?

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EnvoyWeb
              0
            • bjs2010

              How to find all indexed pages in Google?

              Hi, We have an ecommerce site with around 4000 real pages. But our index count is at 47,000 pages in Google Webmaster Tools. How can I get a list of all pages indexed of our domain? trying to locate the duplicate content. Doing a "site:www.mydomain.com" only returns up to 676 results... Any ideas? Thanks, Ben

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs2010
              0
            • Leverage_Marketing

              Reducing Booking Engine Indexation

              Hi Mozzers, I am working on a site with a very useful room booking engine.  Helpful as it may be, all the variations (2 bedrooms, 3 bedrooms, room with a view, etc, etc,) are indexed by Google.  Section 13 on Search Pagination in Dr. Pete's great post on Panda http://www.seomoz.org/blog/duplicate-content-in-a-post-panda-world speaks to our issue, but I was wondering since 2 (!) years have gone by, if there are any additional solutions y'all might recommend.  We want to cut down on the duplicate titles and content and get the useful but not useful for SERPs online booking pages out of the index.  Any thoughts? Thanks for your help.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Leverage_Marketing
              0
            • WebbyNabler

              Duplicate Content From Indexing of non- File Extension Page

              Google somehow has indexed a page of mine without the .html extension.  so they indexed  www.samplepage.com/page, so I am showing duplicate content because Google also see's  www.samplepage.com/page.html   How can I force google or bing or whoever to only index and see the page including the .html extension?  I know people are saying not to use the file extension on pages, but I want to, so please anybody...HELP!!!

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebbyNabler
              0
            • BeytzNet

              Should I remove Meta Keywords tags?

              Hi, Do you recommend removing Meta Keywords or is there "nothing to lose" with having them? Thanks

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
              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
            • Digital Marketers
            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.