• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        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.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • 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
        • My Q&A
        • 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. URL Rewriting Best Practices

        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.

        URL Rewriting Best Practices

        Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        2
        12
        5206
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • TheDude
          TheDude Subscriber last edited by

          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!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • TheDude
            TheDude Subscriber @DmitriiK last edited by

            Thanks for clearing that up and all of the help!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • DmitriiK
              DmitriiK @TheDude last edited by

              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 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • TheDude
                TheDude Subscriber @DmitriiK last edited by

                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 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • DmitriiK
                  DmitriiK @TheDude last edited by

                  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 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • TheDude
                    TheDude Subscriber @DmitriiK last edited by

                    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?

                    DmitriiK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • TheDude
                      TheDude Subscriber @DmitriiK last edited by

                      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]

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • DmitriiK
                        DmitriiK @TheDude last edited by

                        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 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • TheDude
                          TheDude Subscriber @DmitriiK last edited by

                          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 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • DmitriiK
                            DmitriiK @TheDude last edited by

                            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 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • TheDude
                              TheDude Subscriber @DmitriiK last edited by

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

                                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.

                                TheDude 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                • 1 / 1
                                • First post
                                  Last post

                                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

                                • ColesNathan

                                  Is it best practice to have a canonical tags on all pages

                                  The website I'm working on has no canonical tags. There is duplicate content so rel=canonicals need adding to certain pages but is it best practice to have a tag on every page ?

                                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ColesNathan
                                  0
                                • atourgates

                                  Best Practices for Converting PDFs to HTML

                                  We're working with a client who gets about 80% of their organic, inbound search traffic from links to PDF files on their site. Obviously, this isn't ideal, because someone who just downloads a PDF file directly from a Google query is unlikely to interact with the site in any other way. I'm looking to develop a plan to convert those PDF files to HTML content, and try to get at least some of those visitors to convert into subscribers. What's the best way to go about this?  My plan so far is: Develop HTML landing pages for each of the popular PDFs, with the content from the PDF, as well as the option to download the PDF with an email signup. Gradually implement 301 redirects for the existing PDFs, and see what that does to our inbound SEO traffic.  I don't want to create a dip in traffic, although our current "direct to inbound" traffic is largely useless. Are their things I should watch out for?  Will I get penalized by Google for redirecting a PDF to HTML content? Other things I should be aware of?

                                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | atourgates
                                  0
                                • Jonathan.Smith

                                  Should I include URLs that are 301'd or only include 200 status URLs in my sitemap.xml?

                                  I'm not sure if I should be including old URLs (content) that are being redirected (301) to new URLs (content) in my sitemap.xml. Does anyone know if it is best to include or leave out 301ed URLs in a xml sitemap?

                                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jonathan.Smith
                                  0
                                • tomcraig86

                                  Canonical URL & sitemap URL mismatch

                                  Hi We're running a Magento store which doesn't have too much stock rotation. We've implemented a plugin that will allow us to give products custom canonical URLs (basically including the category slug, which is not possible through vanilla Magento). The sitemap feature doesn't pick up on these URLs, so we're submitting URLs to Google that are available and will serve content, but actually point to a longer URL via a canonical meta tag. The content is available at each URL and is near identical (all apart from the breadcrumbs) All instances of the page point to the same canonical URL We are using the longer URL in our internal architecture/link building to show this preference My questions are; Will this harm our visibility? Aside from editing the sitemap, are there any other signals we could give Google? Thanks

                                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tomcraig86
                                  0
                                • spiralsites

                                  ECommerce product listed in multiple places, best SEO practice?

                                  We have an eCommerce site we have built for a customer and the products are allowed to appear in more than one product category within the web site. Now I know this is a bad idea from a duplicate content point of view, But we are going to allow the customer to select which out of the multiple categories the product appears in will be the default category. This will mean we will have a way of defining what the default url is for a product. So am I correct in thinking all the other urls where the product appears we should add a rel canonical to these pages pointing to the default url to stop duplicate content? Is this the best way?

                                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | spiralsites
                                  0
                                • komeksimas

                                  Where to put a page ID in a URL?

                                  Hello, My company is going to change URLs to example.com/category or example.com/product. When we will change the URLs to product or category pages somehow we have to check whether the requested page is from category table in DB or from products table (this gives much speed to page load time). So we have to choose how to make the different product and category pages.
                                  Programmers said that we need to insert id to URL. So the question is: Which is the better way to place an id to an URL? example.com/product-name?id=111 example.com/product-name/111 example.com/product_name-111 Or maybe we should use some other punctuation mark to separate id from product name? p.s. I have read Dynamic URLs vs. static URLs by Google and it still didn't answered which is the best for all of the pages. Somehow others solve this problem by typing only the names to the URL, but could anyone tell what that technology should be?

                                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | komeksimas
                                  0
                                • pano

                                  Removing dashes in our URLs?

                                  Hi Forum, Our site has an errant product review module that is resulting in about 9-10 404 errors per day on Google Webmaster Tools. We've found that by changing our product page URLs to only include 2 dashes, the module stops causing 404 errors for that page. Does changing our URL from "oursite.com/girls-pink-yoga-capri.html" to "oursite.com/girlspink-yoga-capri.html" hurt our SEO for a search for "girls pink yoga capri"? If so, by how much (assuming everthing else on the page is optimized properly) Thanks for your input.

                                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pano
                                  0
                                • digisavvy

                                  There's a website I'm working with that has a .php extension. All the pages do. What's the best practice to remove the .php extension across all pages?

                                  Client wishes to drop the .php extension on all their pages (they've got around 2k pages). I assured them that wasn't necessary. However, in the event that I do end up doing this what's the best practices way (and easiest way) to do this? This is also a WordPress site. Thanks.

                                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | digisavvy
                                  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.