Removing PHP Extension from Website URLs

Guide on how to configure your web server (Apache/Nginx) to hide the .php extension from URLs for cleaner links.

Introduction

Instead of https://example.com/about.php, you want https://example.com/about. This looks professional and is better for SEO.

Apache (.htaccess)

Add the following to your .htaccess file in the root directory:

RewriteEngine On

# 1. Externally redirect /file.php to /file (SEO friendly)
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,}\s([^.]+)\.php [NC]
RewriteRule ^ %1 [R=301,L]

# 2. Internally rewrite /file to /file.php (Server handling)
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*?)/?$ $1.php [L]

Nginx (nginx.conf)

Add this inside your server block or location block:

location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ @extensionless-php;
}

location @extensionless-php {
    rewrite ^(.*)$ $1.php last;
}

# Process PHP files
location ~ \.php$ {
    include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
    fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock;
}

Important Considerations

• Links: Update your HTML links manually. Change <a href="contact.php"> to <a href="contact">.
• Conflicts: Ensure you don't have a folder named contact and a file named contact.php, as this causes confusion.