Moving from a static HTML CSS site with .html files to a Wordpress Site while keeping link structure

[_Thriveworks]

Mozzers,

Hope this finds you well. I need some advice. We have a site built with a dreamweaver template, and it is lacking in responsiveness, ease of updates, and a lot of the coding is behind traditional web standards (which I know will start to hurt our rank - if not the user experience). For SEO purposes, we would like to move the existing static based site to Wordpress so we can update it easily and keep content fresh.

Our current site, thriveboston.com, has a lot of page extensions ending in .html. For the transition, it is extremely important for us to keep the link structure. We rank well in the SERPs for Boston Counseling, etc...

I found and tested a plugin (offline) that can add a .html extension to Wordpress pages, which allows us to keep our current structure, but has anyone had any luck with this live?

Has anyone had any luck moving from a static site - to a Wordpress site - while keeping the current link structure - without hurting any rank?

We hope to move soon because if the site continues to grow, it will become even harder to migrate the site over.

Also, does anyone have any hesitations? It this a bad move? Should we just stay on the current DWT template (the HTML and CSS) and not migrate?

Any suggestions and advice will be heeded.

Thanks Mozzers!

[TomRayner]

That's a little disconcerning, but having said that it has got some stellar reviews.

Furthermore, people in January this year have been saying the plugin is still working a-ok:

http://wordpress.org/support/view/plugin-reviews/html-on-pages

That's encouraging if it still works well for WP 3.5.

If you've got the time, I'd maybe a run a test on this - see if you can set up a dummy site, or use an old site you may have, and see if it works for you. Best way to test and debug any problems is always to do it yourself.

[_Thriveworks]

Thanks Tom!

The plugin I tested can be found in the Wordpress Plugin Directory ".html on PAGES" // I am somewhat weary of it because of the lack of updates that it has had. No updates in 2 years.

[TomRayner]

Hi there

Now, I've not used that plugin before, but I have helped to successfully migrate a legion of 8 sites to a new CMS, in the process going from .HTML to .asp keeping the rankings in tact (actually improving a little with fresh content), so hopefully I can help.

We ended up 301 redirecting the old URLs to the new ones, which worked for us.  It was made a hell of a lot easier by keeping the same link structure, which I see you're planning on doing.  I can't stress this enough, it helps so much if you can do this and replicate the structure.

We ended up dropping a few pages in the migration. We asked two questions of these pages - a no to both resulted in letting it return a 404, which is OK (don't be afraid of returning a few).  If the page was either a) bringing in traffic at the first point of entry or b) carrying some link "juice" from external links, the page was 301 redirected to the nearest equivalent page in the new structure.

Now, none of this involves that plugin - I'd be curious to see if anyone has used it.  I like the idea of it if it effectively means your URLs stay exactly the same.  However, I'm just here to say that 301 redirecting has worked for me in the past.  We've read recently that a 301 will pass all the previous strength of the link, which is also some comfort.

As I said before, it was made infinitely easier by keeping a consistent URL structure.  If you can do that, which you're aiming to do, minus the new extensions, it can be a quick and fairly painless process.  If you want some advice on how to quickly get the 301 lists ready, let me know (hope you like excel!).

Hope my input helps, but I'm definitely joining you in wondering if anyone's used that plugin.  Failing that, 301s can help preserve rankings.