5 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
5 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Need to rewrite my main (index.html) page... what to do

by livemusic
4 replies
  • SEO
    • |
My best site needs a total re-write / re-design due to changes in my business since I built the site four years ago. It has great SERP, I guess that is what you call it. It comes up as #1 (or close) on many of my keywords. If I totally rewrite this page, is it like starting over? The Home page is index.html. Should I leave it and somehow make my Home page be something else? Not sure how to do that, if so. Like if maybe I could somehow change the server to go index.htm or something like that and leave index.html as is. Or make it home.html. Could I leave index.html as it is and still keep getting traffic from index.html? What do you think?
#indexhtml #main #page #rewrite
  • Profile picture of the author dmtaylor247
    Hi Bill, If you answer the following questions we may be able to help you better..

    Has your homepage got that extension on it? i.e; yoursite.com/index.html or yoursite.com/
    Is this the main page that ranks well?
    Are you on any sort of blogging platform or is it just plain html?
    How many pages do you have?
    How many links do you have to your hompage?
    How many total links do you have?
    Whats the pagerank of the website?
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6120509].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author livemusic
      Originally Posted by dmtaylor247 View Post

      Hi Bill, If you answer the following questions we may be able to help you better..

      Has your homepage got that extension on it? i.e; yoursite.com/index.html or yoursite.com/
      Is this the main page that ranks well?
      Are you on any sort of blogging platform or is it just plain html?
      How many pages do you have?
      How many links do you have to your hompage?
      How many total links do you have?,
      Whats the pagerank of the website?
      If I type in my website domain, what shows in the browser is just that. It does not say index.html. Yes, the index.html has highest rank of all pages. It is straight html, coded by hand. (Ugly, plain site, yet effective. But I want to make it look better and change the copy.) I only have about 6 pages on this site. Alexa shows 30 inbound links to me. Haha, the vast majority of inbound links are from other sites I own! I would think the index.html page is the one with the links. I see a pagerank of 2, whatever that means. Alexa gives 6,288,094, whatever that means.

      This is a very narrow niche.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6120622].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author dmtaylor247
        Originally Posted by livemusic View Post

        I would think the index.html page is the one with the links.
        If that's the case then it shouldn't be a big deal. I convert alot of html sites to php. They're totally different when I finish them, different code and content and they seem to hold steady, some even go up the search engine results, some I will delete 50% of the pages and it still ranks well.

        404 errors don't necessarily cause your site to tank however, it's the removal of the content, tags, categories, archives that can make the biggest difference.

        Just bear in mind the text content on the page, the density and any styling and keep it all saved, if possible make little changes to the content, reuse it or do it over a longer period of time.

        When you redo it you may aswell optimize using Firebug while your at it.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6120793].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author livemusic
          Originally Posted by dmtaylor247 View Post

          If that's the case then it shouldn't be a big deal. I convert alot of html sites to php. They're totally different when I finish them, different code and content and they seem to hold steady, some even go up the search engine results, some I will delete 50% of the pages and it still ranks well.

          404 errors don't necessarily cause your site to tank however, it's the removal of the content, tags, categories, archives that can make the biggest difference.

          Just bear in mind the text content on the page, the density and any styling and keep it all saved, if possible make little changes to the content, reuse it or do it over a longer period of time.

          When you redo it you may aswell optimize using Firebug while your at it.
          I can't afford to screw this up, as it is my main site. As for the redesign, I would get a web designer help, as my web skills are limited. Yet, I have been successful, for sure. I was hoping I could just leave index.html as is since it works well now, make a new, redesigned site and have it go to home.html or something. I dunno how that would work out.
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6120923].message }}

Trending Topics