Converting to WP - Should I add .html or 301?
-
Moving my site to WP and the old url structure pages end in ".html".
I have seen there are plugins that allow you to add .html to the WP pages to preserve links.
I am hosting on Synthesis and they do not support htaccess, although you can submit 301 re-directs through the help ticket system. My question is what is the best way to proceed? I have read that 301s "leak" some link juice, but I sure do like those pretty urls.
Advice appreciated!
-
Thanks Dan,
I will be moving to the new url structure, probably post name as I don't have a lot of "juice" to pass anyway. Thanks to Dana for bringing this up in her answer.
In fairness to Synthesis, I believe my question was not clear and on a follow up they gave a very comprehensive response to my question and actually recommended this forum!
As to the htaccess issue, I may not understand this but I believe there is no htaccess file since they don't use apache. Quite a bit on them here <a>http://yoast.com/synthesis-managed-wordpress-hosting/</a>
-
Hi Chris
As I said in the other comment (and I'm just seeing your comment here) - this is crazy! Use a different host that "likes" whatever plugin you want and allows you full access to everything.
-Dan
-
Hey Chris
Personally, I would use a different host that allows you to edit .htaccess! And I would 301 redirect to the new urls.
Go with long term. Even if you lose .1% of link value the non-html will provide a much better UX in my opinion, and you'll have a standard setup.
-Dan
-
I would go towards trying the permalinks option + plugin. It's quite easy to set up and check if it's working right away.
Let me know how it goes either way
-
I think htaccess is relative to apache and the Synthesis servers don't use apache.
Synthesis is a Copyblogger company, the folks who make Genesis, so I hope they have this figured out. I am not concerned about support tickets as there support is very responsive.
Leaning toward the 301.
Thanks
-
Excellent insight Dana, I actually thought about that when I first read the article.
Here's my take: 301 redirect does actually pass full PR. What I think Matt Cutts was referring to w(hen comparing a 301 dissipating PR as much as a link) is actually linking to an URL through a 301.
As an example, siteA.com -> siteB.com would have the same effect as siteA.com -> bit.ly -> siteB.com, as in, the link from siteA would dissipate the same amount of PR whether it's through a 301 or not. Otherwise, there would be little sense comparing a 301 to a link, since they have completely different uses (it's not like you would move your site from one domain to another using links).
Again, this is just my take, which seems most logical to me (otherwise no one would use link shortening services ever again).
-
I read that post at SEO Roundtable and I agree with Eric Enge's interpretation of what Matt was saying in the video. Here's Eric's comment in full:
"It's funny because I find this news for a completely different reason. We have long known that links from a page can't pass all that page's PageRank. No one knows how much PC is not passable, but I have always assumed that it was something like 15%.
In the interview with Matt, my working assumption was the 301 redirect passed nearly all the PR, maybe all but 1% or 2%. I never thought the 301 eroded PR at a greater rate than that.
This comment makes this sound like the 301 redirect consumes the same amount of PR as a normal link. So, my understanding of the dilution through a 301 just jumped from 1 to 2% to something more like 15%.
So now, when you move a site from one domain to another, the degradation in PageRank is quite significant!"
I would love to hear others' take on this one.
-
The .html plugin is not a redirect plugin, it's just using the permalink structure with .html at the end to also work on pages.
However, using permalinks does require .htaccess (it's how WP works), so I'm not sure how you're going to work around that.
Best of luck!
-
Thanks Dana and Mihai,
I asked Synthesis support and just got the response that they do not like "re-direct plug-ins" as they can cause issues.
So this makes me wonder if the .html plug-ins are actually redirects in disguise?
-
Hey Chris,
You can still maintain .html extension in WP. For posts, you only need to add that inside the permalink settings panel. For pages, you can simply use this plugin: http://www.introsites.co.uk/wordpress/html-on-pages-plugin.html
If you decide that you do want to use 301s to change the links and don't have access to .htaccess, you can use this plugin to manage redirects: http://wordpress.org/plugins/redirection/
The redirect-leaks-link-juice issue has been settled: http://www.seroundtable.com/redirects-links-pagerank-16419.html
Hope this helps!
-
I think this totally depends on how much authority your original pages have accumulated. If it's a really old site and you've got beaucoup links, I'd leave the .html on there. The other thing I would take into consideration is the time involved, and potential for error, when having to submit 301 redirect requests via a ticket system. That just sounds like trouble waiting to happen. I'd keep the .html if it were me. Just my 2 cents !
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
-
JS and HTML links: Any risk involved being employing two similar links on every page?
Hi all, We used a have a banner with link from all pages our subdomain. The link is JS link and it's linking to our website homepage from our sub domain. Recently we have added similar HTML link from all pages of sub domain presuming that Google might not be considering JS links. So, now we have 2 links (JS and HTML) from every page of sub domain pointing to the website. If Google considers 2 links, will there be any risk for employing same link twice from every page? Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Services\Companies that expertise to improve WP site speed ?
Hi guys, I used few companies to improve my WP site speed but in general the results were not that good. I wanted to know if there's any recommendation for companies that expert on improving speed of WP sites ? I need companies that this is what they do and that's their expertise! Thanks in advanced
Web Design | | EdmondHong870 -
301 htaccess redirect or 301 HTTP DNS Redirect
Hi, I was wondering which you would recommend for a 301 redirect. Should we do a 301 redirect from .htacess or should we do a HTTP DNS 301 redirect. The HTTP redirect, does a redirect from the DNS Provider and doesn't require that we keep hosting the site while the htacess redirect still requires hosting. Thanks!
Web Design | | MattJD0 -
Should I create a microsite or will 301 be sufficient?
We have a client http://www.shedfinders.com/, new site and we are slowly building DA & PA for. However they have another domain industrialpropertyscotland (one of the keywords they want to rank for) Should we create a little microsite attached to the main site - Say "Your guide to buying industrial property in Scotland" or should we just stick to a 301 redirect and keep working on the main Shedfinders site? Thanks, Laura
Web Design | | lauratagdigital0 -
Redirect From .aspx to .html if already indexed - Website Redesign
Hi Guys I would like to know if somebody could possibly shed some light on this for me. We are in the process of re-designing our site, but we are keeping all of our content in terms of site structure, internal linking etc. the same. Now we were wondering if it would be a SEO best practice for us to change our pages' extension from .aspx to .html and just put a re-direct from the aspx to the html pages. Or should we keep everything as is, and maybe just revise our on-page seo efforts as well as do some more link-building. I just have to note that we are currently ranking very well for top positions and obviously all these pages are already nicely indexed. And then another question I have is with regards to our mobi site of this same website.Our dev team created it using Responsive Web Design, but they decided to implement techniques that show and hide content based on what device you are viewing it on. So when viewing it on your desktop, it will show content as per normal, but when viewing it on a mobile device it will hide this content and show the content formatted for that specific mobile device. So we are obviously sitting with a case of dup content here.Is this technique acceptable, or is there a workaround/different way of implementing this? Thanks In Advance Dave
Web Design | | DavidZA10 -
Redirects (301/302) versus errors (404)
I am not able to convincingly decide between using redirects versus using 404 errors. People are giving varied opinions. Here are my cases 1. Coding errors - we put out a bad link a. Some people are saying redirect to home page; the user at least has something to do PLUS more importantly it does NOT hurt your SEO ranking. b. Counter - the page ain't there. Return 404 2. Product removed - link1 to product 1 was out there. We removed product1; so link1 is also gone. It is either lying in people's bookmarks, OR because of coding errors we left it hanging out at some places on our site.
Web Design | | proptiger0 -
SEO tricks for a one page site with commented html content
Hi, I am building a website that is very similar to madebysofa.com : means it is one page site with entire content loaded (however are commented in html) and by clicking on sections it modify the DOM to make specific section visible. It is very interesting from UX point of view but as far as I know, since this way most of my content is always commented and hidden from crawlers, I will loose points regarding SEO. Is there any workaround you can recommend or you think sites like madebysofa.com are doomed to loose SEO points by nature? Best regards,
Web Design | | Ashkan10 -
How do you get rid of the .html and .php extensions at the end of urls?
What is the whitehat way to properly remove the .html and .php extensions at the end of urls? Example: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo.php should be (and is) http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo
Web Design | | Ryan-Bradley0