Question

After researching, I have come to some conclusions for utilizing SEO URLs. For semi-static .php based sites that have file names such as index.php, about.php, contact.php etc I am using htaccess mod_rewrite rules so that for example ‘www.mysite.com/about‘ can be used in place of ‘www.mysite.com/about.php‘. In such cases, all of my menus and links are then pointing at the SEO URL.

What I have found out though, is that even though nothing in my site references the .php extensions, if I enter them directly, they stick. So, I can get to the about page using /about or /about.php, and each will show as entered. It seems reading through posts here that this is a common issue.

My question is, does this matter? If nothing in my site references the .php extensions in a link or menu, do i need to be worried about duplicate content??

I was told I need to add something in htaccess like:

redirect 301 /about.php http://www.mysite.com/about 

for each page to eliminate the possibility but I don’t understand if this is really an issue in this case?

Answer 1

Two Questions:
Q1. “Does this matter”?
Answer: Not if you’ve never exposed the .php URLs before. If you have, then the answer changes to “yes”.

Q2. What .htaccess?
Answer:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php [R=301,L]