Redirect and Rewrite to remove .html from url

Question

I have a really basic rewrite rule that I've been banging my head against the wall trying to achieve. I have a static HTML site that I want pretty URLs for.

So, I want /something to serve /something.html and I also want to redirect (externally) from /something.html to /something as to not be penalized on SEO for hosting duplicate content.

I don't want to use Multiviews and I don't want to use <rel cannonical="">

This is what I currently have.

RewriteRule ^(.*)\.html$ /$1 [R=302,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.html -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html [L]

It results in an infinite redirect loop.

It seems to me that the first rule keeps matching even after the requested URL doesn't end in .html.

Answer 1

Yes your rules will cause redirect loop due to use of REQUEST_URI (via RewriteRule ) which changes after application of a rule.

You can use:

    RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \.html [NC]
    RewriteRule ^(.*)\.html$ /$1 [R=302,L]

    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.html -f
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html [L]

• THE_REQUEST variable represents original request received by Apache from your browser and it doesn't get overwritten after execution of some rewrite rules.