
Ask HN: Is removing. HTML, .php, etc...bad for SEO in 2020? - Mike_Andreuzza
I just removed my websites .html extension and is affecting gloriously my traffic, I would say.<p>Should I submit the new url on Google Search console?<p>The site.
- https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.colorsandfonts.com<p>Is hosted on netlify.<p>thank you 
&#x2F; Mike
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TechBro8615
The problem is not the lack of extensions, but the fact you changed existing
URLs. So now every existing URL looks like a dead link, which google does not
like. Make sure you 301 any existing URLs to the new ones (should be fairly
easy since it’s an obvious structure of extension to no extension)

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viraptor
Have you just removed the extensions, or have you permanently redirected the
traffic, marked both urls as same, etc.

There are third-party-documented changes to the algorithm, like
[https://moz.com/google-algorithm-change](https://moz.com/google-algorithm-
change) where you can see what matters these days.

Things like extensions should be meaningless for decades now.

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Mike_Andreuzza
Hey, well, 2 days ago actually. I have redesign the whole site and I uncluded
that.

Ok..I was wondering if I should go to the Google Search Console and ask it to
crawl them again...

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codegeek
Yes resubmit to google search console. Google will index them anyway at some
point but better to resubmit yourself. Also make sure robots.txt is setup
correctly as needed.

Note: I noticed you still have an old sitemap.xml that shows the .html urls. I
am not sure how that affects things but you may want to do a new sitemap as
well ?

~~~
Mike_Andreuzza
Ok.Will definately do that...

I haven't thought about the XML actually, good catch.

Well, robots.txt should be fine though or you mean I should be changing
because I removed the .html extension.

Thank you for helping out.

