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
-
I have a site with jokes. What schema markup could I use?
My site is about jokes. I wonder what schema markup could I use to be more visible in the search results.
On-Page Optimization | | MichaelJanik0 -
Is there a way to find out who is trying to damage my site
Hi, to cut the story short, i hired a seo guy to do work on my site, paid a lot of money, but then when he was let go all the links to the site were stripped and other work had vanished. I want to know if there is a way to prove this and to also check on any other damage that he could be doing at the moment to my site. The site was running high in the search engines and then dropped a short while after he was let go.
On-Page Optimization | | in2townpublicrelations0 -
Site appears to rank very low
Hi, A site we manage is ranking very low for it's main key phrases. The site is www.moremouse.com. For example for the phrase "orlando vacation rentals" it ranks around page 12 which seems very low considering the DA, PA, links, etc. compared to many sites ranking much much higher. Can anyone see anything obvious that is causing it to rank so low? Thanks Pete
On-Page Optimization | | QbicIS0 -
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 -
Rel=author WP Plugin
Anyone find a WP plugin they like for rel=author and rel=publisher markup? I'd love to find one that gives and about the author at the end of a blog, and tags the G+ page on the end for rich snippets. Does that exist?? 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | AESEO0 -
Website redesign: site going from .php to .html
A site I'm working on is being redesigned because the current platform does not allow for content to be changed easily. In the process, they are going from .php to .html. I am concerned about their losing link juice. Can a site work with the old content remaining .php and the new content being .html or should all pages stay .php?
On-Page Optimization | | cakelady0 -
Advantages of wordpress over dreamweaver
I have a site that I have built with dreamweaver (local service business not a lot of new content needing to be added) and I am curious how much of an advantage for me converting it to wordpresss would be. I see that cs5 works with wordpress and that lynda.com has a tutorial on integrating the two. I would like to integrate a blog into my site, but it is not totally critical that I do so. I would just like to hear what some of you experienced users have to say about the advantages of wordpress vs dreamweaver from an SEO prospective.
On-Page Optimization | | ayetti0 -
Trouble with Old Site Name
Trying to figure out what is causing a site to show up under a former name in Google. The name of the client is Fortenberry Legal. They changed from Fortenberry Law Group over a year ago. I can't find any code on the site that uses the old name. For some reason, it still shows up as "Fortenberry Law Group" in Google. When I search for "Fortenberry Law Group," that shows up in Google with a full set of site links. When I search under the new name (Fortenberry Legal), that also shows up in Google but without the site links. Any thought on what could be causing this?
On-Page Optimization | | Falconberg0