Changing Static Website to Wordpress - .html pages ranking dilemma

8 replies
  • SEO
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Hey guys,

from an SEO point of view, what is the best way to change a static website to wordpress, while preserving the original .html URLs of the pages?

I assume forcing redirection, (through .htaccess or whatever), has its negatives (SEO-wise). Or is it not the case?

Would much rather prefer to keep the URLs as they are (.html), but without using a method that would sacrifice existing SERPs rankings.

Thanks.

.
#changing #dilemma #html #pages #ranking #rankings #responsive #seo #static #website #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author paulgl
    Go ahead and do WP, but that's a step backward.

    Why delete anything? Keep the pages as is. Hire someone to
    do it if you can't.

    A site that spits out .html pages does not have to be static, and
    a WP site does not mean it is automatically "dynamic."

    I can't fathom why anyone would ever want to ditch a site and
    install WP just because. Makes no sense. There are so many
    better CMS's out there, it's amazing.

    I use php. Yup just like WP. My pages get spit out in html,
    just like WP. I can change, edit, add, etc, in a few seconds.
    Better than WP, just the way I want it. No bloat, no muss, no
    fuss.

    Paul
    Signature

    If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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    • Profile picture of the author Mystery777
      Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

      Go ahead and do WP, but that's a step backward.

      Why delete anything? Keep the pages as is. Hire someone to
      do it if you can't.
      Really, wasn't planning on deleting but more of merging or redirecting in a way that doesn't affect current rankings. Not sure if that is possible though.

      A site that spits out .html pages does not have to be static, and
      a WP site does not mean it is automatically "dynamic."
      I didn't know this piece of info (despite using wordpress for a long time). So how do you go about doing that?

      I can't fathom why anyone would ever want to ditch a site and
      install WP just because. Makes no sense. There are so many
      better CMS's out there, it's amazing.
      Initially, I built the site to be static (many years ago), when I believed that static sites usually load faster. Was a mistake. I had to go through a lot of work to do even the smallest changes/additions to pages, which would have taken me a sec, if it were on Wordpress.

      I did use other CMS before (like Joomla and such), but I'm more used to Wordpress and the convenience of its very wide range of plugins, compared to the rest.

      .
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  • Profile picture of the author danparks
    Have to agree with paulgl here. Nothing wrong with WordPress, for someone who doesn't know much or anything about programming and doesn't have a website. But you already have a website. Does it totally suck? If it's the website in your signature links, that looks like an okay website (I'm not going to bother to give some kind of comprehensive review, I'm just saying it looks okay). Your site exists and is running. If you want to add more pages/posts, or features, that shouldn't be any big deal for you (or someone with even modest web programming abilities) to do. Do you want to switch to WordPress "just because"? Just continue to work on your existing site and don't risk a total change unless you have a very good reason to do so.

    Finally, your signature in your post has three (3) links: Best Web Hosting, Web Hosting Reviews and Top Web Hosting. They all go to the same website. What's the point of that? You realize that Warrior Forum backlinks are nofollow, right? So there's no SEO value in them. People here (if they have any sense) include links in their signature for *direct traffic*, not for SEO. Using three links, to the same site, in your signature isn't going to get more forum members to visit your site. So why do that? I only point this out because I think it shows a fundamental lack of knowledge regarding SEO, so that might make you question your own idea of just randomly switching to WordPress.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mystery777
      Originally Posted by danparks View Post

      But you already have a website. Does it totally suck?
      It doesn't (in the looks department) but it was de-ranked by Google for not being responsive.

      They sent me a letter specifying why it was de-ranked and told me they are forced to lower it in the search results shown to other mobile and tablet users.

      I usually don't mind changing a site to responsive or creating a separate mobile version for it, but this one is huge.

      Plus, I thought about it and Wordpress, in the long run, is more convenient. Might as well just use a responsive wp theme for it. What do you think?

      [quote]If it's the website in your signature links, that looks like an okay website[quote].

      It's not that site (although it is also probably a good idea to revive that one). It's another much bigger one built in the "old stone ages" so to speak.

      Finally, your signature in your post has three (3) links.
      I honestly don't know why that sig is still there. I abandoned that site time ago and wanted to update it accordingly. I'll check its analytics though to see if it'd have a chance if also made responsive.

      About the keywords of the 3 links: I either thought the forum was dofollow or I was counting link indexation in search engines through various keywords. Used to do a lot of tests back then but can't recall now.

      .
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  • Profile picture of the author SEO Power
    I guess the big question here is why do want to make the switch to WordPress? Everyone thinks it's unnecessary and I agree with them. Until you can give us a plausible reason as to why you want to use WordPress instead, my response to you will conform to the ones above.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mystery777
      Originally Posted by SEO Power View Post

      I guess the big question here is why do want to make the switch to WordPress? Everyone thinks it's unnecessary and I agree with them. Until you can give us a plausible reason as to why you want to use WordPress instead, my response to you will conform to the ones above.
      I just answered that above and yeah you are correct. It probably is unnecessary if weren't for the fact that I was directly told by Google that it needs to be mobile friendly. And changing it into mobile friendly, in its current static form, is a lot of work.

      That's why I want to opt in for a responsive Wordpress theme. But at the same time it'd be much more convenience if I get to keep the .html page extensions.

      .
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  • Profile picture of the author limekyln
    I recently converted a small static html Dreamweaver site to Wordpress. I used 2 wordpress plugins to get the new wordpress URLS to match the old html site urls.


    The first plugin is "custom permalinks" by Michael Tyson. This allow you to change the name of the wordpress pages to anything you want.


    The second plugin is "ESB URL Extension" by Henry. This one allows you to set the page extensions to .html, .htm, .php, .jsp, .asp, .xml etc.


    This combo allowed me to get all the wordpress page urls to match the old static site urls.
    Worked great to retain all the social media likes (pinterest, facebook, twitter, google +)
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  • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
    If you're planning on moving the content to a CMS redirecting the old pages to the new ones is the standard practice. If you leave the old pages just don't duplicate the content to the new CMS-driven site.

    I'm a WordPress guy, but my opinion is the same as seen on this thread. Would not push people to switch just because. WP doesn't have any real SEO benefit over static HTML if you know what you're doing with your tags. However, often businesses have good reasons to use a CMS such as being able to concentrate on the content and not mess with any technical stuff.

    Someone mentioned responsiveness, but that's just style. Nothing to do with the CMS. Using a responsive WP theme is an easy way out, but if your sites HTML is relatively well coded, adding CSS media queries shouldn't be much of a problem.
    Signature
    Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
    Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

    What's your excuse?
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