You may have noticed many top ranking websites on search engines sporting links that lack the .html and .php extension. Many SEO marketing companies seem to support this practice.
But is it truly helpful from an SEO point of view?
Well, yes…in a sense.
Make no mistake though, your website will not suffer by leaving these extensions on your URLs, so if you’re feeling uneasy about making any changes, you can relax.
However, there are a few advantages to be had from making changes.
First of all, rewriting your URL does not actually take these extensions off, but rather hides them. And this leads to a better-looking, cleaner URL which is good for user experience.
A cleaner looking URL with fewer characters can be optimized with better keywords, especially if these keywords are long.
If you’ve already made up your mind to go for the change, go with caution.
Handling such a change is a delicate exercise. The index .php is responsible for any and all requests to the system. The safest way to go about implement this change, without damaging your site, is by asking for a developer’s help.
Your developer should have the experience to access your website’s FTP to edit the .htaccess file and implement commands that will hide the .html or .php. They can also deal with any necessary redirects as needed to ensure that Google does not penalize you.
