How do you get rid of .html url extension?

Question

I'm attempting to 'prettify' my urls by getting rid of the .html url extensions. Upon researching similar questions, it seems a .htaccess file is require to change this, but all I have available with the particular server I'm hosting with is a web.config file. I do not know where to begin. Thanks in advance for any help.

You could create a folder for every index.html, then you don't have the problem at all. Otherwise mod_rewrite or mod_redirect can help too. If you have an Apache HTTP Server... — Balint Bako, Jun 07 '13 at 22:27
Web.config is IIS. .htaccess is Apache. This question has a link that details how to do what you want http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4124342/hide-extensions-of-the-pages-with-web-config — knoight, Jun 07 '13 at 22:28
So I would just create a named folder, put my one index.html file in it, and it will still read the index.html file and get rid of the extensions? Sorry I'm kind of a newb. — Kyle Clay Richards, Jun 07 '13 at 22:30
If you type `http://myserver.com/myuri` that will return `http://myserver.com/myuri/index.html` usually. At least this is the default on Apache and I assume the same for IIS. — Balint Bako, Jun 07 '13 at 22:33
All of these suggestions make sense to me, it's just that my server does not allow me to edit the web.config file. Maybe I should contact them and have them help me too? — Kyle Clay Richards, Jun 07 '13 at 22:42
@BalintBako Your first suggestion was the route I take to fix the problem. Thanks! — Kyle Clay Richards, Jul 25 '13 at 17:25

apparat · Answer 1 · 2013-06-07T22:37:04.570

It seems that you are using an ASP.NET webserver. It is possible to add rewrite rules inside the web.config file. You define a url let's say http://myserver.com/helloworld and "redirect" it to the html file.

For example:

<system.webServer>
    <rewrite>
      <rules>
        <rule name="HelloWorldRewriteRule">
          <match url="helloworld$" />
          <action type="Rewrite" url="helloworld.html" />
        </rule>
      </rules>
    </rewrite>
</system.webServer>

In this case, all urls ending with helloworld would be redirected to helloworld.html. You can find a more detailed explanation here.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 11 '13 at 12:45

Maybe answer comes a little bit late but I had similar problem with static files and could not find an answer. IIS has a bug for static files and you need to apply a hotfix (if not applied yet) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2646735

after that you need to add to your Web.Config system.webServer section

<staticContent>
    <mimeMap fileExtension="." mimeType="text/html" />
</staticContent>

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 29 '16 at 15:26

I went with @BalintBako's solution above, and since it's not a comment I can't "accept" it as the answer. So here is the answer with credit to him.

I made a folder for each page (i.e. /about, /portfolio, /contact, /etc) and put an index.html file in each of those folders. This made it so you can reach those pages via direct link (webdomain.com/folder) and it would render the HTML that I have in the index.html file, therefore eliminating the .html extension for user friendliness. Pretty simple fix without any limitations from my knowledge.

How do you get rid of .html url extension?

3 Answers3