Moving a site from .cfm to Wordpress - How to keep the authority?
-
Hi guys,
My client has a site built with Cold Fusion (web pages end in .cfm) and we're moving them over to Wordpress (for many reasons), keeping the same menu structure and navigation.
Their previous SEO company was pretty awful, however, they did manage to establish some decent authority/backlinks for the website and its 20 or so pages.
My questions:
- I assume I'll want to do 301 redirects for each page, possibly by editing the .htaccess file? Any advice on this?
- Anything else I need to consider in this move?
Thanks!
-
Thanks for all the help guys.
@Cardigan Media - This seems to be the best solution.
The website is about 8 years old and we're staying on the same domain, so don't want to lose those existing backlinks.
Cheers,
Steve -
Were just doing the same kind of thing with our own website.
Make sure you run the existing site through screaming frog and open site explorer. You want to make sure any incoming links are pointing to relevant pages within the new site. there are a number of plugins in wordpress to handle 301's but I usually start by adding them to the htaccess just because it keeps things a bit tidier.
Have you checked webmaster tools to make sure any broken links are addressed?
Also you'll need to add your Google analytics code to the new site. Maybe try Google tag manager if its a new site.
-
I agree with the above. 301 redirect. Keep in mind that changing urls however will result in some traffic loss...the only question is how much.
The more 301s you have the more your rankings will suffer in the transition.
Do not move your entire site with just 301s.
If you are changing domain below might be a safer option.
-
Actually, a 301 redirect can be avoided here, provided you maintain the same page/URL structure. You can use this WordPress plugin to generate the custom .cfm page extension and retain your URL structure to avoid hurting your rankings:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/custom-page-extensions/
It would be best to avoid a 301 redirect if possible.
-
If you are simply migrating a site to Wordpress I don't believe 301 redirects are necessary. All you need to do is make sure the same url structure is used.
Its basically like doing a website redesign.
Now if you are moving to a new domain:
1. get the new pages live first. Add canonical tags pointing old pages to new pages.
2. Watch search results and see your existing ranking results move to new pages. Wait until all significant search traffic has shifted to new pages
3. take down old pages and replace with 301 redirect.
-
Im sure wordpress like joomla has an addon for url rewrites essentially 301 is the way to go...
Get a plugin to make it easy
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Wordpress Tags and Catagories
I am looking for data in regards to Wordpress and blog tags and categories. Wordpress has these identifies in there tool, but I see them being used less and less. Wordpress also creates annoying pages and duplicate content errors when using tags. Should I remove these tags and categories to improve SEO? I am also wondering if anyone has noticed a difference in user experience and traffic when changing these.
On-Page Optimization | | JoeyGedgaud1 -
Moving/deleting blog
I have a website with a blog attached to it. It is a wordpress blog which we have not updated since 2013. However, it has a lot of pages going back to 2010. I am moving my website to weebly so I can't move my blog over. I could recreate all the posts and make redirects to the new url. However, the posts are old and outdated so it doesn't really make sense, aside from seo. I need advice. Would I take an seo hit if i start over with a blog and leave the old posts behind? Thanks!!!
On-Page Optimization | | bhsiao0 -
Pre-launch site or not
We are going to set up a new site in four months. Historically we always set up a simple Wordpress "Pre-launch-site" with relevant texts to start ranking in the SERP. Anyone with experience of doing/not doing this and what is had led to? A site with relevant texts also should have incoming links, which needs more work.
On-Page Optimization | | fredrikahlen0 -
Site restructure question
Our site was deigned years ago to target customers in specific cities, now we've grown beyond this and I believe it is time to change the site structure.
On-Page Optimization | | PM_Academy
Ignore the 302 from the root page. Current structure: (assuming you've never been to our site before) projectmanagementacademy.net 302->/select-location.php /select-location.php -> /city-name/pmp-training.php This page was meant to be a "homepage" for each city, pointless page really /city-name/pmp-training.php -> /ciy-name/product-name.php These pages are for each individual product My suggested site structure: /city-name/pmp-training.php becomes projectmanagementacademy.net no more redirect /city-name/pmp-training.php gets removed and 301 to root page. /product-name.php each product's page and you would select a location when necessary (some products are online only) would 301 each /city-name/product-name to corresponding product page /product-name/city-name.php could add these pages if we still wanted the city name in url for city specific products My thoughts here are /product-name.php would receive a higher % of link juice because there are fewer page between 2 vs 4 if you came to the root page. and 2 vs 3 if you came from the select-location page. Also instead of being split between over 50 locations, all these would be together on one page. Your thoughts? Would this change improve our SERP for those product pages? Would we see a drop off in traffic if we did this? How long, if done correctly, would it take to see the recovery of rankings and traffic? Could we 301 /select-location.php to the root page? Thanks in advance for your insights to this. Any answer is a good answer. Trenton0 -
Site Maps / Robots.txt etc
Hi everyone I have setup a site map using a Wordpress pluggin: http://lockcity.co.uk/site-map/ Can you please tell me if this is sufficient for the search engines? I am trying to understand the difference between this and having a robots.txt - or do I need both? Many thanks, Abi
On-Page Optimization | | LockCity0 -
Changing my site (dramatically)
I am about to do a complete site change. I am going to WordPress. I am ranked #2 on SERPS. Will I lose rank for changing everything on my site? I have 500 pages indexed but I am about to have 30k indexed. It is a real estate site that is switching from a "framed" solution, to a listing indexed solution. If I make good use of my keywords etc (on site optimization) will I be at risk of losing risk just for changing my site?
On-Page Optimization | | JML11790 -
Site structure for services and blog articles
Hi, looking for some advice on the structure for a relatively small site (around 200 pages). I'd like a structure where we can talk about our services as well as write blog articles on topics that relate to our services. We'll have loads more content in the blog area than in the services area. I was thinking of this: option 1: /services /services/copywriting
On-Page Optimization | | JaspalX
/services/social-media
/services/press-releases etc. and categories for articles where we'd give tips, talk about trends etc. /copywriting
/social-media
/effective-press-releases
etc. would it be better to have a different structure, say: option 2: /copywriting
/copywriting/services
/copywriting/articles OR option 3: /copywriting-services
/copywriting-blog OR option 4: /services/copywriting
/blog/copywriting OR is there another, better way perhaps? Of course the internal anchor text links to the services/blog articles pages will be tuned to try and make it clear what each section is about i.e. our services vs. industry trends/comments/tips for the blog.0 -
Different names for Twitter/Facebook, and site?
Greetings, I want to optimize my site, www.atstrust.com. I know that posts to Facebook and Twitter help improve ranks. Does it matter though if my twitter/facebook sites have a different name than the domain I am optimizing? For example, my Facebook site is facebook.com/easyinspection. I assume that doesn't matter as long as the URLs on the site refer to my domain? Thanks! Eric
On-Page Optimization | | Ericc220