SEO and WordPress for website

It feasible to install WP on an existing static HTML site and maintain the existing pages while adding more content via WP. Of course you lose the benefit of a CMS for those existing pages if you keep them. If you do migrate existing content to WP, it would then have different URLs than it currently has. If you set up 301 redirects from old to new, in theory the new should inherit the page rank of the old. Since very few truly know how this is handled by Google (they’re not talking), no one can promise this would happen, but it seems to work. If the page’s content changes significantly it’s not appropriate to do a 301 redirect and could adversely affect page rank if you did do so.

It’s easier to set up 301 redirect rules if old and new URLs are consistently similar, for example if you changed example.info/foobar.html to example.info/foobar/, it’s simple to write a single rule for all similar cases, always replacing “.html” with “/”.

If you retained the original static HTML pages, there would be no reason to 301 redirect those to WP pages since they still exist and maintain their page rank. The redirect is for when you convert static pages to WP pages where its URL would then change and the original static file no longer exists. BTW, it’s also possible to convert some pages and retain others.

I’m making a big assumption that you have a static HTML site to start with. Mainly because you said it was ages old. Since in tech terms “ages” ago could mean last year, maybe that’s not a good assumption.

By benefits of CMS I mean having the ability to easily create and edit page content within the WP editor without having good knowledge of HTML coding. Additionally, if you want to someday update the site’s appearance, it’s a matter of simply changing themes. Changing the look of static sites can involve tedious editing of every .html file for the site.

The main drawback to retaining static pages beyond losing the advantages of CMS the pages probably don’t match the WP theme in appearance, so the site may appear disjointed. It’s conceivable to alter one or the other to appear the same, but the effort required to do so might be better spent converting the page to WP in its entirety.

Maybe if I explained how WP works from a server perspective it’ll make more sense how WP can cohabit with a static site. As you are aware, any time a file request for a static web page comes into a server, the server finds the file and sends its content back to the requesting browser or client app. As a CMS, WP doesn’t have any static files. It consists of a bunch of PHP files that execute computer code on request. The PHP code may or may not send content back to the client app. The PHP code for WP assembles information dynamically from a variety of data sources and replies to the client app with the result.

WP permalinks do not physically exist on the server. When a server gets a WP permalink request it fails to find the requested file. There is a special directive for the server that tells it when it can’t find a requested file, it should load and execute the WP environment. WP then takes over to interpret the request and respond with an appropriate reply. So when a static file exists from the current site, it gets served as it always has. When a WP permalink request come in, the server cannot find it, so it starts up WP and lets WP figure out what to do with the request.

I hope that clarifies things. If not, tell me what you need clarification on. It’s no bother at all.

OK, if you are moving from a hosted service like Wix to self-hosted WP, we’re looking at two entirely different servers. There is no file overlap so anything I said about retaining files from the old site does not apply. Sorry for causing any confusion. 301 redirects from old to new URLs should be put in place. Keeping URLs as similar and consistent as possible will make creating redirect rules easier. How the rules are placed depends on your server type. For Apache, it’s done through the .htaccess file. While using a SEO plugin is a good idea, I doubt it will set up redirect rules for you.

Changing sites is literally like flipping a switch by way of the NS records of you domain’s DNS. The switch is pretty slow to trip though, a few hours up to two days. The home page is the easy part since it’s just your domain name with no path or file. Its URL remains the same. It’s all the other pages that may need redirects unless you can keep the same identical URLs.

It gets a little involved if you build the new WP site while using your new host’s temporary domain because when you change your domain NS records to the the new host, all the temporary domain references in the DB need to be changed to the proper domain name. There are a few search and replace plugins that will help with this, so it’s not a huge deal.

“Snoopy” LOL 🙂 No worries. That explanation sort of helps, but I’m not entirely sure what your host has in mind. It sounds like they are moving your site to a different server once it’s ready, which is a reasonable plan. Linux is a good choice for WP. Your domain name will simply lead to a different server. From Google’s standpoint it’s still the same site because the domain is the same. But if all the URLs aside from the home page have changed, unless Googlebot gets 301 redirects leading from old to new, it’ll instead see 404 responses for the old URLs, which will not be good for SEO.

Since your home page is simply your domain name, it does not change, so all’s fine there. It’s all the other URLs which need attention.

When Googlebot gets 301 redirects, in theory the new URL should acquire the page rank from the old URL. If the URLs are consistently similar, it makes setting up redirect rules easier. If they are inconsistent or dissimilar, you will need a lot more rules to handle all the redirects. If you want to have a few dissimilar redirects while most are similar, that’s OK, just avoid wholesale changing of everything willy-nilly.

Good URL change: example.info/foobar.asp –> example.info/foobar/
Not so good: example.info/foobar.asp –> example.info/snafu/

If your host will “flip a switch” once your new site is ready, how do you access the development site to do work on it in the interim? Typically a temporary domain is assigned. A heads up in that case: When a domain change (temporary to permanent) is made in WP, all the domain name references in the database need to be updated. This can be a little tricky because you cannot do a simple SQL search and replace of names if they occur in serialized arrays. Fortunately there are a few tools that properly handle serial search and replace like the Better Search and Replace plugin.

301 redirects should remain in place as long as the old URLs are still being requested. It could be several months. If there’s only one redirect rule because all URL changes follow the same pattern, there’s little harm leaving it in place permanently. If there were hundreds of different rules then you should consider reducing them within a reasonable time frame.

I believe your development WP site is running on a temporary URL. It could be when your host flips that switch they will manage the domain name changes in the database for you. You should ask for guidance from them whether you need to use Better Search and Replace or if they’re taking care of that for you.

#toomuchchoice – I know, right? My advice in reducing the number of candidates is to not worry about whether a theme has the right fonts or colors. Those can easily be changed. The layouts available and basic functionality are more important as they take greater effort to customize. Give preference to themes that have been regularly updated and where the author provides help in the theme’s dedicated support forum.