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Converting a static site to Wordpress

by Mrsparrow
10 replies
Hi,

I'm about to convert website of mine from regular html to wordpress for easier management reasons.

My plan is to back up the files of the current site, then to install wordpress in the main directory using Fantastico, and finally to manually rebuild the content and links.

All of my current pages end with .htm and I know that there is a wordpress plugin which allows for permalinks to include a .htm ending, so all the urls will remain the same in the end.

With the help of the all-in-one-seo plugin I'll also copy all the meta descriptions and meta keywords, so they will remaing unchanged during the process.

After that it will be just a matter of copy pasting the content.

Does anyone who has done this see any potential issues in my plan?
Will google notice and/or penalize my rankings for changing to wordpress?
Anything I should be aware of before starting the process?


Thanks!
#converting #site #static #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author promo_guy
    You shouldn't need a plugin, just go to your permalinks and create a custom one, like:

    /%postname%.htm (it's been a while since I've done that but that should work)

    When you say you are going to manually rebuild the content, I assume you're not trying to make your current (html) site look exactly the same only have it as a WP blog right? In other words, the site will look totally different as you'll have a "wordpress theme" but the content such as articles will be the same, yes?

    That shouldn't be a problem either. I don't think Google will penalize you. Not sure if any pages would do the "google dance" or not though as there will be new code for each page but overall I don't think there'd be a problem.

    Someone else might have a more definitive answer but I don't see a problem with it to be honest.

    Good luck
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  • Profile picture of the author Mrsparrow
    When you say you are going to manually rebuild the content, I assume you're not trying to make your current (html) site look exactly the same only have it as a WP blog right? In other words, the site will look totally different as you'll have a "wordpress theme" but the content such as articles will be the same, yes?
    Yeah, the site will look different, but the content will remain the same though...same number of words, same links, same pictures etc.

    Thanks for your advice!
    I'll go ahead with my plan then.
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  • Profile picture of the author Darren Mothersele
    You could just put a .htaccess file in the root with a bunch of 301 redirects that send the old links to the new content pages.
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  • Profile picture of the author purelogic
    Its better to install good wordpress theme and add pages into it in the html format and you can get your wordpress blog site
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  • Profile picture of the author joomlawala
    contact me for help.
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    Masud
    Email me at: masud@softsubstation.com
    [to start PSD-to-XHTML/CSS $70; PSD-to-Joomla/WP $150 only]

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    • Profile picture of the author goldenkid
      Banned
      [DELETED]
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      • Profile picture of the author killbedbugs58
        WordPress is the best open source CMS for managing your website on regular basis. But please keep in mind to update to the latest version of WordPress to reduce security vulnerabilities like hacking by sql injection in theme files.
        Here is an easiest way to convert your static HTML site to WordPress. Follow these step-by-step guide and you are done.
        Let's assume you have 3 static pages, Index.html, about.html and products.html and you want to move to WordPress. Less the number of static pages, less the effort is required to convert.
        1) Install WordPress in the root of this domain.
        2) Immediately copy the Index.html to the WP Theme (whichever theme you are using) folder, and rename it Home.php. WordPress will automatically use the home.php page as the default. You should have no broken links or any worries about redirects.
        3) Leave the permalinks with their default settings. This keeps you from having problems with existing pages.
        4) Copy the contents from About.html and create a page called About
        5) Copy the contents of your other files and make pages with the exact same names. If your page names are different than the titles, you can edit the permalink to match the filename (without the html extension).
        6) Once the data is copied and you have the look you want, change the permalink to /%postname%.html
        7) For PAGES (Not POST) to use the HTML extension you need a plugin as WordPress only applies the Permalink structure to the posts. Recommended HTML Extension Plugin -> WordPress Hero
        8) Install this Plugin first for the pages.
        9) Remove the old static pages, I suggest keeping them just in case you have a problem, but you need to move them out of the root.
        10) Copy the index.html contents to the file you want to be your home page, and delete the Home.php file. Typically this is the index.php in the theme, however you may want to use a static page depending on the site setup. You can change this in WP Settings.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mrsparrow
    Thanks for all the massages...in the end I managed to do the switch

    Great advise form everybody, and especially from killbedbugs58

    Cheers!
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    • Profile picture of the author kharrison
      Glad it all worked out. As an FYI, a programmer I talked with recommends NOT using all-in-one-SEO plugin; instead use Greg's high performance SEO plugin because it uses much less code (faster performance).

      It's free; the link takes you there to review it. It really helped me any way.

      Cheers -

      Kimberly
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      Nika Bleu Marketing
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      • Profile picture of the author A^2Ron
        I'm thinking about converting a static site that is coded in php, so this thread caught my attention.

        Were your sites ranking before you made the switch? Have you seen any changes so far? I'm curious if this will cause a "google dance" too. I keep going back and forth between building out some more content hand coding the pages or just switching it to wordpress.
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        • Profile picture of the author Mrsparrow
          Originally Posted by A^2Ron View Post

          I'm thinking about converting a static site that is coded in php, so this thread caught my attention.

          Were your sites ranking before you made the switch? Have you seen any changes so far? I'm curious if this will cause a "google dance" too. I keep going back and forth between building out some more content hand coding the pages or just switching it to wordpress.
          My site was raking on the first page before the switch...on pos 4 to be more exact. So far I have not seen any changes in ranking...fingers crossed
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