Updating a site w/o losing place in google

Okay , So I am currently the 3rd site displayed when you look up either "soap making tutorial" or "soap making tutorials" ... I would like to convert the site to include some php, and I am also going to update it and take into account suggestions others have made about reworking the color palette (because it seems to look waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too brown, which I agree....)

now in order to do the color change, I think Id only need to edit the CSS, so that wont effect or change my position in google,

But if I were to add some php menu and footer options, Id need to change the front page and every other page from index.html to index.php and thus it would invalidate my link on google? is there any way of converting without any ill effects in the google search? is it even worth converting it to php?? or should I just bite the bullet and try to concentrate on adjusting the color stuff and not so much the formatting?

thanks

 

You can use an .htaccess file to make your server treat html pages as php. i.e. if you change your htaccess file you will be able to use htm or html pages with php in no problems at all. So you wouldnt need to change your page names. Have a google on htaccess and addhandler.

 

sweet, thank you much for the tip! Going to look into it!!

 

thanks i needed this info

 

Yep, .htaccess thing works great. I have had to use it. Another option, is to put your new .php pages up there. Then change your 404.shtml to re-direct to your index page. This way all of your old .html files that still have a ranking will re-direct to your new index, before they are dropped form the google cache.

 

ched - thanks very much for that tip. I have been wanting to change htm files to php (in order to add a contact form into each page) but have held back because - even with a 301 redirect - some link juice is still (according to Matt Cutts) lost.

 

Google expects websites to change because most good sites do. I'm sure that you know that PHP is serverside code, however everything that is "visible" to the user (and Google's spiders) is still HTML. I wouldn't worry about something as simple as changing extensions as far as search rankings. What you do need to worry about is broken links which can be fixed with htaccess as suggested.

 

Makes sense, then yeah, that .htacces is a very useful little file.

I'm pretty sure this is a tut that will do you some good: http://www.desilva.biz/php/phpinhtml.html
...And here is another to keep you reading if you are interested: http://corz.org/serv/tricks/htaccess.php

As a separate note, having re-directs on your error pages to your index is a handy way to get people where you want them to be.

 

Or you could set up 301 i beleive permenant redirects from the .HTML to the .php version. the html version will drop from the serps and your php version will take its place.

 

i know this is an old thread but im sifting back through old notes, how would i set it up so it would redirect to the php pages from the non-existant html files??