The correct way to go from PHP site to HTML site?
-
I have a website fully coded in PHP and I am doing a re-design over to an HTML site. I searched through the Q&A and there were some conflicting answers. Some said you will need to 301 all the pages. Others said to use the .htaccess to parse all the files as html.
What is the correct way I should go about this?
Thanks in advance!
-
Hi James,
As Cocoonfxmedia noted, it depends a good deal on your CMS situation.
For SEO purposes, there's no difference between PHP and HTML - search engines don't encounter PHP code, it occurs on the server and then the server sends the search crawler the HTML output.
I'd have to see the site in question to understand what would have to happen from a SEO standpoint to ensure things carry over smoothly, but in general I'd recommend focusing on ensuring that any page URLs that are linked to from other websites (Open Site Explorer is a good way to check on this) are 301 redirected to their best replacement URLs on the new site.
301 redirecting every single URL is not necessary. I'd focus on the URLs that have links from external websites. Search engines will adjust properly for the other pages, dropping the old URLs once they get a 404 error and finding/indexing the new pages from the top-level pages.
Best,
Mike -
"I personally think you can keep the PHP. The only reason I can see changing to HTML site is if you don't have a CMS system running"
The new site is already coded in HTML though - Is there just some code I can add to .htaccess to tell spiders that all PHP are not HTML?
Obviously I will need to change any internal/external links to the new extension. I want to make sure I cover all my bases and do this properly.
-
I personally think you can keep the PHP. The only reason I can see changing to HTML site is if you don't have a CMS system running. I would 301 redirect the old pages to the new.
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
-
Site has 302 redirects for HTTP to HTTPS when it should be 301
Hey all, In the latest Moz crawl, certain pages on our website have shown as having 302 redirects for the http to https, but not all. There should be a 301 solution, but wanted to see if anyone had any advice or guidance. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Julzseo1 -
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 -
Should I use nofollow when interlinking large, networked sites?
My company runs a network of very large networked sites, each with thousands of content pages. In our main navigation we are currently not nofollowing links between these networked sites. The links appear on every single page in the top navigation, and there are thousands of pages on each site. I am worried this will look to Google like we have suspiciously received thousands of links from one domain - one link from every page on the domain. Should we be nofollowing these navigation links between the different sites in our network?
On-Page Optimization | | Natasha90040 -
Easy way to import metadata into Drupal 7?
We have to update the metadata for a drupal 7 website. We've already written them all out, and know exactly what URL they should go to. But I don't want to waste the client's money by spending any more time than is necessary on uploading the information to the site. Is there a way to upload the information that isn't manual?
On-Page Optimization | | ZephSnapp0 -
What shall we do to increase organic traffic for both the sites?
We have 2 English language bookselling websites targeted for USA and UK audience with some content variations but 60%-70% of the content on site remains the same. The site is hosted in USA. One is hosted on brandname.co.uk (for United Kingdom) and one is on brandname.com(For United States) The precautions that we have already taken to save it from being marked duplicates are: used rel=alternate element for all product detail pages currency in both the sites are different that is GBP and USD Geotarget settings done for USA and UK respectively through webmaster tools Launched backlink campaign to gain from local sites and directory respectively have tried to differentiate the product by using different product specific terms like Publishing Year: vis a vis published in: Author Vis a vis Written by Format vis a vis binding type Add to cart vis a vis add to basket and so on What remains the same: 1. Product detail pageTitle 2. Product detail page Meta Description 3. Product Name- That is Title of the book which cannot be changed anyways 4. About the product text –The memo or “About the Book” that comes along with the book and is same across each booksellers site. This is impossible to be differentiated as the database have more than 3 Million books brandname.com which is older (2 Yrs) of the two has traffic around 2500-3000 daily visits while the brandname.co.uk which is 5 months old has 150-200 daily visitors. Both sites have around 4 Million pages. Need suggestions what are we doing wrong and what extra can be done to boost organic traffic?
On-Page Optimization | | CyrilWilson0 -
Mentioning own site and keywords on here?
I have noticed that sometimes posters will talk about a site without mentioning what it is. I assume this is because it one of their clients so there is confidentiality, is there any other reason I should be aware of? its just that as I am new I am usually cautious and am considering posting my own site and mentioning all my keywords to ask for people’s verdict for my on-page SEO. Still working on it, will be ready soon, thought I would ask in advance. Regards,
On-Page Optimization | | Zoolander0 -
Suggestions on plans to optimize my site? (NOOB)
I am currently trying to plan how to optimize my site based on keywords. I read and I understand site architecture and usability http://www.seomoz.org/blog/site-architecture-for-seo , but I am still somewhat confused about how to target each keyword per page or when http://www.seomoz.org/img/upload/splitting-keyword-targeted-.gif Let me give you an example. We build databases for SME's using 3 different technologies. One of them is MS Access. Based on PPC campaigns and keyword research some of the possible keywords might be ms access programmer ms access consultants access database experts According to the link provided, should these be separate pages? I feel if they were, our site nativigation would be cluttered and clients would not be benefiting from them at all. It might even lead to some redundant data which I believe is bad right? My feeling is to make one page and target one keyword, but I'm not sure. For example, see one of our top ranking competitors http://www.justgetproductive.com/content/access-programmer/index.php Please, look at the footer? Is that actually how I should structure my links? I hope the answer is NO! Then again, if I do just have one page targeting one keyword, what do I do about the others? Do I just try to use blog posts/articles addressing those keywords? Do I not target them at all? Thanks for any advice, please keep in mind I am just getting started. My approach is to create a plan to outline everything before I put a lot of time into it.
On-Page Optimization | | emcacace1 -
Site Structure
I'm confused about the best way for seo to set up the site structure . i understand the examples of the pyramid diagrams and how link juice flows, however does this mean that global navigation is not good? It appears the pyramid structure leads to the designated number of category pages (we'll use five) and they lead to the 5 content pages etc and some "superman pages" can be linked to from the home page but is this is global navigation or anchor text navigation and is gloval navigation acdeptable for content pages? Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
On-Page Optimization | | JulB0