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Best Way to Migrate Static Site to Wordpress?

by xlfutur1
10 replies
I have a failrly large html site that I am going to migrate over to wordpress. But I can't have the existing site be down.

Would it be easiest to install WP in a subdirectory, then transfer all the content, seo, etc. then when its done, replace the original with that by moving it to the root folder?

Or is it possible to work on the site in the root but not screw up anything with the existing html pages?

Also, should I keep the pages the same (i.e. %postname%.html in permalinks) or should I just let google figure out the structure and index the new format after its moved over.

Any advice would be great if someone has some experience doing this.
#html #migrate #site #static #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author Aaron Moser
    I'm not sure the best way to migrate it but I can tell you that you're Search Engine rankings are going to take a dive it you do this. Unless the directories and file names stay exactly the same. Be cautious!
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    • Profile picture of the author Wakunahum
      Personally I would just add a blog to the site and build within the blog from now on.

      I've done it a few times where I matched the wordpress theme to the old theme making the whole site look like it was made with the same tool.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dan Grossman
    Do it locally on your own computer (run your own web server), then transfer it over when you're ready. You can and should keep all the same URLs. It's quite possible, easy in fact, to migrate a static site to WordPress without any outward signs of it having happened at all... but on the backend, you can now manage the site through WP.
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  • Profile picture of the author zeurois
    You could run a script that would take all the html files and build posts with the content inside this way: filename goes to permalink, the title tag goes to post title. Then you'll have your blog in place, up and running and SEs won't even notice that
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    • Profile picture of the author xlfutur1
      Originally Posted by zeurois View Post

      You could run a script that would take all the html files and build posts with the content inside this way: filename goes to permalink, the title tag goes to post title. Then you'll have your blog in place, up and running and SEs won't even notice that
      That sounds like a painless solution! Do you know of any scripts available that will do this? sounds like a rentacoder visit might be necessary?
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  • Profile picture of the author Jesus Perez
    Install Wordpress in the root and no one will ever know unless you give them the http://www.yourdomain.com/index.php location. Html files always take precedence over php files and will display before PHP. So you can basically have both co-exist while you copy and paste your content over.

    Once you're done, do a permanent 301 Redirect (link) for each HTML page to make sure all your existing, search engine indexed pages maintain their ranking and keep their SEO juice.

    Watch out for the images, htaccess and css folders when you do this.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dan Grossman
      Originally Posted by BlueSquares View Post

      Html files always take precedence over php files and will display before PHP. So you can basically have both co-exist while you copy and paste your content over.
      This isn't always true, or even true often enough to consider a safe bet. The order file names are checked looking for a directory index is totally up to the web host, however they set the DirectoryIndex directive in their httpd.conf file.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lewis Leake
    I agree with Wakunahum - that's how I have done it on my sites.

    I then add the rss feed from my blog to the website.

    Lewis
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