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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-23T16:56:39+00:00

I currently have all my pages working without their .php extensions by using mod_rewrite.

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I currently have all my pages working without their .php extensions by using mod_rewrite. Such as:

www.mywebsite.com/noextension

However, how would I go about redirecting my users to a 404 page if they decide to add the .php extension to the url like this?

www.mywebsite.com/noextension.php

My htaccess looks like this so far:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f 
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9]+)(/)?$ $1.php
RewriteRule ^forums/([a-zA-Z0-9]+)(/)?$ forums.php?category=$1 [NC]

I have tried things such as this RewriteRule \.php$ - [R=404], however, it just 404’s every single page I go to. I assume I might have to use something like REQUEST_URI to do what I am asking.

What do you guys suggest I add? Thanks.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Try these lines (place above those you have already):

    RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} ^$
RewriteRule ^(.+)\.php - [F,L]

    This rule will block (403 error) direct access to ANY .php file (but will path trough already rewritten URLs, when rule goes to next iteration).

    TBH I’m not 100% sure that it will work (it depends on your Apache config) … but considering that you have v2.2.x it should (it works fine on mine 2.2.17).

    UPDATE:
    For “its kicking my web sites homepage without /index to a 404” add this line before the above rule:

    RewriteRule ^$ /index.php [QSA,L]
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