If you want to maintain your search rankings just create 301 redirects to your new WP pages. Google and other major search engines pick up on 301’s and you won’t be penalized with a 404 error for previously ranking pages.
The reason I want to do this is to maintain search engine ranking on many well placed pages that I am moving to the WordPress platform.
You can do that without putting in .html on your pages (which you don’t want to do, as that’s entirely unnecessary). As long as you keep the URL structure the same, this is pretty easy.
Let’s assume your old pages are domain.com/about.html and domain.com/2011/11/postname.html
RewriteRule ^(.+)\.htm$ http://domain.com/$1/ [R=302,NC]
That may be all you need. If not, add this below:
RewriteRule ^([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})/(.+)\.htm$ http://domain.com/$1/$2/$3/ [R=302,NC]
Make sure they’re ABOVE your WordPress .htaccess calls.
If you’re dead set on usnig .html, though
http://wordpresshero.com/tricks/add-html-extension-to-permalinks.html/
Mind they’re wrong about .html being ranked higher.
Thread Starter
4020
(@4020-1)
Thanks for your replies.
Tim: I have considered using 301 redirects. However, this would be quite a task as I’m moving approximately 1500 pages. In addition, the site has hundreds of well established incoming links which (I assume) would lose their value if the page names change.
Ipstenu: The rewrite rule is too technical for my understanding so I guess a plugin seems to be my only option.
If you use 301 redirects (which is pretty much what I was saying with the .htaccess) then you do not lose link value. I would spend the time to learn how they work, as they’ll be easier to support going forward. No worries about plugin incompatibility down the linw.
Thread Starter
4020
(@4020-1)
I hadn’t realised that. I was under the impression that the name change would destroy all the incoming link value created over many years.
I do know how to set up 301 redirects using cPanel.
Would I need to manually list all 1500 pages individually in the cPanel redirect area or would the code you originally posted above deal with a bulk redirect?
Thanks again for your help.
The name change without a redirect will destroy incoming link value 🙂 With a redirect though is perfectly fine.
And you could list all the 1500 pages individually, but if they have a good naming pattern that they use today, and will have a consistent one they’re moving to, the code I gave you can be put in your .htaccess to do ’em en masse.
And the cPanel 301s are really the same thing.
So what are your URLs today and what will they be?
Thread Starter
4020
(@4020-1)
I think that the pain of individually creating many 301s will in the long run be worth it. And it allows me to tidy up a lot of pages that could be better named.
Thanks again.
Sadly sometimes that’s the best way about it :/ Hated it when I did it, too.
