Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
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
-
Can access my site using www
Hello, when I try to access my website using www i would like it to redirect to non www but instead it shows a sal error message.
On-Page Optimization | | Voopoo2 -
On site issues after Magento 2 launch
We did a new site launch on Feb 7th this year - www.vesternet.com It changed from Magento 1 to Magento 2. We had some launch issues around SEO but now we've solved most every crawler issue in Moz reporting - according to Moz we're in better shape on-site than ever. But our organic search is just dropping daily - we expected a drop after launch then back to normal, but over 2 months on something just isn't right. A good example, on Google UK for keyword 'home automation' we've always been about position 10, but now we're out the top 50... Forget about off site for now - what's wrong with our site itself to have caused this? Can anyone help with insights please as this is killing our sales
On-Page Optimization | | dbsmtec1 -
How does Google handle read more tags in Wordpress
Hi Everyone I am wondering how Google handles the read more tag in Wordpress. I pasted the link to a blog post on Google and found nothing (domain.com/post#readmore). Then I paste the version without #readmore (domain.com/post) and found that Google indexed the page but with the option to click "read more" to read it. The full blog post is not in their index, just the version asking you to read more. Is this because Google hasn't gotten to it or is Google ignoring it. I am not sure but ideally I rather have the full blog post indexed, not the read more version. I am curious to whether this will cause duplicate content issues. What are your experience with this and is it advisable to use an alternate method for read more. Maybe with a Wordpress plugin. Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | gaben0 -
Thoughts on archiving content on an event site?
I have a few sites that are used exclusively to promote live events (ex. tradeshows, conference, etc). In most cases these sites content fewer than 100 pages and include information for the upcoming event with links to register. Some time after the event has ended, we would redesign the site and start promoting next years event...essentially starting over with a new site (same domain). We understand the value that many of these past event pages have for users who are looking for info from the past event and we're looking for advice on how best to archive this content to preserve for SEO. We tend to use concise urls for pages on these sites. Ex. www.event.com/agenda or www.event.com/speakers. What are your thoughts on archiving the content from these pages so we can reuse the url with content for the new event? My first thought is to put these pages into an archive, like www.event.com/2015/speakers. Is there a better way to do this to preserve the SEO value of this content?
On-Page Optimization | | accessintel0 -
Random /feed 404 error from a wordpress site
My Moz Analytics report shows a 404 error on a page which I think should not exist at all. The URL is http://henryplumbingco.com/portfolio-item/butler-elementary/feed/. When I checked webmaster tools, it looks like there are a number of random /feed urls throwing 404 errors. I am using WordPress and the Enfold theme. Anyone know how to get rid of these errors? Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | aj6130 -
How often is your domain authority updated?
I can't seem to figure out how often our domain authority is updated - it seems random, do you know typically when this happens? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | regineraab0 -
Stolen Content reposted on other sites. How does this affect ranking?
Visitors often copy and paste my content and post it elsewhere... on Facebook, on Tumblr, on forums and sometimes on competing websites... but they don't link to me. How does Google treat this duplicated content? What is the best way to handle it? File DCMA claims or ask them for a link?
On-Page Optimization | | brianflannery0 -
Duplicate content on partner site
I have a trade partner who will be using some of our content on their site. What's the best way to prevent any duplicate content issues? Their plan is to attribute the content to us using rel=author tagging. Would this be sufficient or should I request that they do something else too? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | ShearingsGroup0