Best Way to Switch from HTM to PHP

Hey, guys, a question for you experts out there:

My main site, which I started 5 years ago while in college on a whim, has grown to be my primary moneymaker. I want to keep it as is, but I also want to change it over to php for easier updating, which I tend to do about once a week. Right now it's static htm pages built on Frontpage. (Remember, I was in college, studying something completely not involved with computers, and it was just supposed to be a hobby.) and it's a pain in the ass to update; basically I have to change codes then re-up the files onto the server.

Anyways, I want to switch the site over to php. Can anyone recommend an easy/best way to do this? Or is it even possible?

Thanks.

 

Make all new pages in a CMS like JOOMLA! or Mambo. That's my advice.

 

Well I would look at mvable type or wordpress BUT, the most important thing you need to do is start researching 301 redirects or you will trash all your rankings. Search for 'Google friendly redirects'.

 

why not just enable php parsing inside of .html/.htm files and put the php you want in there and leave the file names the same?

 

My article script allows you to simply cut and paste (with formatting) all your content using the FCKed editor. This would make it pretty simple and fast.

 

What he said.

 

You really dont switch to php, html and php are different.

To make a good site you'd have to use html. PHP is an addition, it makes sites way better.

 

this is definitely your best option. it will let your .html/.htm files use php code just as if they were .php

 

This is normally not the best industry practice because it does not seperate design & static pages from dynamic pages. For a small site operated by one developer it is o.k but as it grows to the point that there will be developers and page designers working on pages it can become complicated to maintain as desingers will find it difficult to work on dynamicpages and developers are more likely to screw up design pages.

 

The reason I suggest a CMS is that it will be a lot of work to go through all your old static pages and edit them to use includes and stuff. Also if you are not familiar with css, adding that to your old pages would certainly be very difficult.

By leaving most of your old, static pages as is and creating new pages in Joomla! (for instance) you don't need to worry about redirects at all, except for index.htm to index.php. I think your .htaccess (or whatever it's called, I can never remember) file is the only thing you need to worry about for that part.

As for wordpress, I love it and use it a lot. If you've got a blog, it is great. One day very soon it will be a fine general purpose CMS, and can be so today if you spend a lot of time dickering with plugins, etc. But for a newbie at WP, I cannot recommend it other than as a blog platform (at this time).

 

How exactly does one do this?

Thanks.

 

drupal is worth trying. Maybe a bit more difficult to setup but definitely powerful and easy to use once it's set up. A lot easier than mambo/joomla (the admin interface can be confusing) and very easy to SEO. Plenty of great modules, too, and not so difficult to create themes.

 

add this to the htaccess file

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .htm .html