smithaa02 - 5:06 pm on Nov 2, 2012 (gmt 0)

Deeper, that is the standard wp .htaccess code that pipes all url requests to index.php which does the grunt work in making almost any url structure you want work.

Once you install that .htaccess code, then install that plugin 'custom permalinks', then configure it (per my original instructions), you will be able to call your wp pages whatever. Just edit the page...tab out of the title to get the url box to appear then type in whatever.html, click save and you are good. This way your new url matches your old url.

G1smd...that will work for .html urls...I use it all the time on my wp sites.

I disagree about wp making those urls...figuratively it does with the rewrite and without a redirect. Google doesn't know the difference (or doesn't care) so it is not a big issues IMO.

I agree that for new sites, you can getaway with not inserting the html extensions.

The advantage of adding them for an old site is that you don't have to 301 (and not lose %10(?) of your page juice from old links).

Wordpress also has the annoying habit of insert trailing slashes onto the end of pages. With custom permalinks you can avoid this nonsense and possible seo complications. mydomain.com/test, mydomain.com/test/ are technically different urls so IMO trailing slashes should be used sparingly and only for true directories.

WP is a great system but it gets some other seo aspects wrong as well... It's canonicilization is buggy...it's rel next/prev is incorrect, it create tons of dupe pages (especially with categories/author pages/keywords) if you're not careful and it inserts annoying feed pages into your header. But with the correct fixes (mostly to functions.php) and plugins, it is a very slick platform that serves seo well.