URL change extension to .php from .htm
-
I am looking at changing the platform of an established (7 years) site to PHP based.
Currently most of the URLs have the file extension .htm (“x.com/filename.htm” ) with some URLs being indexed as directory URLs (“x.com/directory/” feeding from “x.com/directory/index.htm”)
So I am considering two options
-
A. Changing just file extensions & create 301 redirects, (x.com/samefilename.htm” -> “x.com/samefilename.php”) and for directory URLs (“x.com/samedirectory/index.htm” -> “x.com/samedirectory/index.php”)
-
B. At the same time taking the opportunity to change the file hierarchy to be more user / seo friendly by changing all URLs to directory URLs – this would be a more extensive redirect than just changing the file extension.
I am interested in what risks / impact would there be of this and the questions I would like some help with are:
- Are there any short term risks to rankings with a filename extension change like this?
- Should an exercise like this be staggered or is it ok to carry out the site-wide change in one go?
- Does a more extensive filename and structure redirect like in option B above introduce more risk than just changing to the .php extension or would the search engines consider this the same?
- For the directory URLs do I even need a 301 redirect after changing index.htm to index.php or will the Search engines not even recognise a change (indexed URL will remain the same)?
Your opinions on the above questions and any other advice / experience you can share would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Adrian.
-
-
Istvan makes a number of good points and Matt Cutts has certainly alluded to a loss of some link juice when using 301's, although Google's official line is that there is no loss. I'd not seen the 15% number before, which is certainly high enough to be discernible above the 'noise'.
I support his contention that, in terms of getting existing inbound links repointed, it's best to focus on the few high value links and then look for new links driven by quality content. This has the double benefit of cleansing some of the now-devalued link types, whilst appealing to Google's measurable preference for 'fresh' links.
-
Hi Adrian,
with a 301 you lose aprox 15% of link juice (don't remember who gave that exact number, but i still have that in my mind )
So basically if you can change the links that you have control of, it will help. with other links... try to focus more on gaining new link partnerships. the 301 will lose some of the link juice, but new partners will push the link diversity and will help you more.
I hope it helped and good luck ;-),
Istvan
-
Thanks Istvan and Alan for the responses.
On the subject of incoming links - I can change internal links and inbound links from other sites I control however the vast majority of links will still point to the old page location so my follow up question is just how serious is this link juice loss due to the 301 and is this a serious enough reason to not do the change and keep the locations as they are now?
-
Thank you Alan
-
Istvan is give a good answer, i would add one thing, make sure all your internal links point to the new urls, dont rely on the 301, as as Istvan stated, they will leak a little link juice.
-
Hi Adrian,
We had a similar problem not as long ago (changing the website extension from .html to .aspx). What we have experienced is, that the website traffic and rankings went down for aprox. 1-2 week, then it came back up without any problem.
I would suggest to go for all change at one time instead of going with partial rewrite, then again some partial rewrite. (Before you put it alive, test all your links! check for broken links and make sure the redirects are right)
After the website deploy you should resubmit a new sitemap in GWT.
The 301 should be done, so after resubmitting your sitemap in GWT you will not face any duplicate content issue.
The negative part: you will lose some of the link juice thanks to the 301. If you have the possibility contact the webmasters who are already linking to your website and ask them kindly to resolve the URL issue (at least for the highest authority links you have gained in time).
I hope that helped,
Istvan
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
-
Usage of keywords in URL
Hi everyone, I'm trying to optimize our website and I'm not sure what's ideal for our URL structure. We have two products: one of them is focused on B2C & the other one on B2B.
Technical SEO | | Klouwers
Our homepage is focused on the B2C product. For our B2B product, I'm not sure what's ideal. The URL for our 'homepage' of the B2B product is ourdomain.com/software. We have different target groups for our B2B software, and therefore different pages on our website. Which URL would be best to use for the keyword personal trainer software?
1. ourdomain.com/software/personal-trainer-software
2. ourdomain.com/software/personal-trainer0 -
Friendly URLs for MultiLingual Site
Hi, We have a multilingual website with both latin and non-latin characters, We are working on creating a friendly URL structure for the site. For the Latin languages can we use translated version of the URLs within the language folders? For example - www.site/cars www.site/fr/voitures www.site/es/autos
Technical SEO | | theLotter0 -
Friendly URLS (SEO urls)
Hello, I own a eCommerce site with more than 5k of products, urls of products are : www.site.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=61_87&product_id=266 Im thinking about make it friend to seo site.com/category/product-brand Here is my question,will I lost ranks for make that change? Its very important to me know it Thank you very much!
Technical SEO | | matiw0 -
Is it worth changing our blog post URL's?
We're considering changing the URL's for our blog posts and dropping the date information. Ex. http://spreecommerce.com/blog/2012/07/27/spree-1-1-3-released/ changes to http://spreecommerce.com/blog/spree-1-1-3-released/ Based on what I've learned here the new URL is better for SEO but since these pages already exist do we risk a minor loss of Google juice with 301 redirects? We have a sitemap for the blog posts so I imagine this wouldn't be too hard for Google to learn the new ones.
Technical SEO | | schof0 -
Backslash in URL
my main URL is www.americanmusical.com, SEOMOZ shows I have a duplicate page title on www.americanmusical.com/. I have the think the backslash is causing other issues. I noticed when I first go to my site it is without the /, but if I navigate to the home page, the URL has the / in it. Any ideas on if this is a problem or how to handle it?
Technical SEO | | dianeb1520 -
Internal file extension canonicalization
Ok no doubt this is straightforward, however seem to be finding to hard to find a simple answer; our websites' internal pages have the extension .html. Trying to the navigate to that internal url without the .html extension results in a 404. The question is; should a 401 be used to direct to the extension-less url to future proof? and should internal links direct to the extension-less url for the same reason? Hopefully that makes sense and apologies for what I believe is a straightforward answer;
Technical SEO | | jg1000 -
Use of + in url good or bad?
Hi, I am working on a SEO project for a client.
Technical SEO | | MaartenvandenBos
Some of the urls have a + between the keyword.
like www.example.com/make+me+happy/ Is this good or bad for seo?
Or is it maybe better to use - ? Thanks!0 -
301 Redirects Change?
Hi, Mozzers- I've noticed pages that are getting 301 redirected are staying out there longer. It used to be that you would implement a 301 redirect and then after a couple of months the old page would disappear out of Google's index. Over the last couple of months I've noticed pages lingering, popping up.... What gives? Thanks in advance! LHC
Technical SEO | | lhc670