mod rewrite in .htaccess to hide url extensions not working

Question

Just can't get rid of my url extensions.

I'm building a static site so all content is in HTML format and files have .html extensions. I want to hide the .html extensions from users so my url would read websitename.com/about

I have modified the .htaccess file where my site is hosted, it now looks like this

# -FrontPage-

IndexIgnore .htaccess */.??* *~ *# */HEADER* */README* */_vti*

<Limit GET POST>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from all
</Limit>
<Limit PUT DELETE>
order deny,allow
deny from all
</Limit>
AuthName boldfacedesign.co.uk
AuthUserFile /home/boldface/public_html/_vti_pvt/service.pwd
AuthGroupFile /home/boldface/public_html/_vti_pvt/service.grp

RewriteBase /
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{RQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{RQUEST_FILENAME}\.html -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1html [L,QSA]

At present this just isn't working.

As you can see this file is in the public_html folder, is that the correct place for it? Or is there something else I need to do to enable the rewrite rule to take effect? Or do I simply need to be patient and wait a day for the changes to take affect?

I've been googling this for hours now and I'm getting nowhere.

Answer 1

Not sure if these are typos or what, but your rewrite rules should probably look more like:

RewriteBase /
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.html -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html [L,QSA]

Or if you have trailing slashes, the last line should be:

RewriteRule ^(.*?)/?$ $1.html [L,QSA]