Converting to WP - Should I add .html or 301?

[Chris661]

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!

[Chris661]

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>

[evolvingSEO]

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

[evolvingSEO]

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

[mihaiaperghis]

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

[Chris661]

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

[mihaiaperghis]

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).

[danatanseo]

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.

[mihaiaperghis]

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!

[Chris661]

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?

[mihaiaperghis]

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!

[danatanseo]

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 !