htaccess rewrite .html not required / is optional - apache

Question

I have a working website, with atleast 500 pages ranked in Google.
All pages have .html at end of page.
Now I want to remove .html of all pages, but let the pages in Google (with .html) keep there index.
After searching I cant find the correct answer.
I know the ? is for optional. I tried 2 Rules behind eachother but didnt work too.
Here is what my htaccess now is:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*).html$ find_page.php?redirect=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L,QSA]
I tried with adding:
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ find_page.php?redirect=$1&%{QUERY_STRING}
So if URL contains no extension use this rule, else use the normal rule (with htaccess)
I should expect my rule should be something like this: ^(.*)(?\.html)$
So my goal is: With or without html should work, but .php shouldnt be work :-)

Answer 1

Why look for a complex solution?
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.+)\.html$ find_page.php?redirect=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.+)?$ find_page.php?redirect=$1 [L,QSA]
This rewrites all request to that php script, adding the original "file name" as parameter "redirect" and preserves all query parameters. That is what you asked for in your question.
But a warning: you can do this and it will allow to rewrite requests to for example page "redirection" as .../redirection?somearg or .../redirection.html?somearg. But for google both request are completely different pages. This will not help you to preserve any ratings when shifting to the new request scheme.
And a general side note: if you have control over the http server configuration, then you should always prefer to place such rules in the hosts configuration instead of using .htaccess style files. Such files are notoriously error prone, make things complex, are hard to debug and really slow the server down. They should only be used in two cases: if you do not have control over the http server configuration or if you require your scripts to do dynamic changes to your ruleset (which is always a very insecure thing).

Answer 2

Ok solved my problem.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]+\ /([^/]+/)*[^.#?\ ]+\.html([#?][^\ ]*)?\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^(([^/]+/)*[^.]+)\.html find_page.php?redirect=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L,QSA]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ find_page.php?redirect=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L,QSA]
With this option there will be checked if the page has .html optional at end. If it has, will the first rule be matched, else will go further and use the second rule which has no html at the end

Answer 3

Try
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html
You don't need find_page.php for redirection. As it mentioned in other answer http://server/folder/file and http://server/folder/file.html becomes the same for the user but different for the Google.
This does not affect to PHP, folders and other content. It just tries to add «.html» to requested URL if it does not point a file or folder.
I've checked, it works fine even user queries uri with anchor like 1.html#bookmark1