Canonical file names for SEO

I don't understand all I know about canonical file names—so please correct me if I'm wrong. I originally thought canonical file names referred to only www vs. non-www. But now I think it also includes file names that have been changed/assigned for SEO reasons or other reasons. For example - changing all file names to end in .html vs. .php or .asp.


Both Drupal and Wordpress offer the option of changing file names to whatever you want them to be. You can have all of your files end in .html etc.

My questions: Is there any preferred file extension for enhancing SEO? Are there any other considerations, other than extension, to consider in canonical names? Maybe I should be referring to them as canonical URLs.

Tx for your help.

 

There aren't any known benefits to having different extensions (.php, .html, .asp) or whatever.

Canonical URL's simply tell the search engine bot, where the content should be located incase you can reach your content from different urls

Example, the following URL could all display the same content, but with a canonical URL set to site.com/article1 the search engines would condense everything to that page

site.com/article1
site.net/article1
site.org/article/repost/1