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.

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

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>