Converting to WordPress - how to keep PR?

After much research I've decided to convert my entire website to be powered by WordPress. My concern is that if I change file structure/names that I will loose my PR. Is there any way to convert while still keeping existing PR? Will I have to do a 301 redirect to each page?

 

If you convert now, you should probably get the PR to all your wordpress pages as the PR update is on its way! But you will not loose your domain's PR if you convert to wordpress

 

I was under the impression that if you change file names you will loose PR

 

I did this over the weekend, so I'll try and pass along what I did. In summary though, you should not have to use any redirects. Instead, choosing to integrate your existing pages into WordPress.

I installed WordPress for the first time last week. Never used blog software before. I set it up initially on a subdomain of my primary site. Something like beta1.mysite.com

With that in place, I setup everything the way I wanted it, created a custom theme that matched the previous look/feel of my site.

I installed a few plugins I felt would benefit the site. Once I had the look/feel down, the categories setup, etc, I saved the front page source, from my browser, to my Dreamweaver directory as template.html.

My problem was, I had some pages on my old site that had the .html extension, so I added the following code to my .htaccess file:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .php .html

Code (markup):

*Note: You only need to do this, if some of your files were .html. If they are .htm, then replace the .html in the code above to .htm. Place this above the "# BEGIN WordPress" line. You may have to setup an initial page in wordpress on your site first, then copy down the .htaccess. I think it's created dynamically, not sure. But it uses the "# BEGIN WordPress" as a marker, so placing the code above that line will keep it safe. This line in the .htaccess file allows .html files to be parsed as php.

At the very top of the template.php file, I added:

<? 
require_once('wp-config.php'); 
require_once('wp-settings.php');
?>

Code (markup):

Next, go to the line that starts with

<!-- begin sidebar -->

Code (markup):

. Strip everything from that line, to the bottom of the page out and delete it. In it's place, add the following:

<!-- End content -->
<? require_once(TEMPLATEPATH . '/sidebar.php'); ?>
<? require_once(TEMPLATEPATH . '/footer.php'); ?>

Code (markup):

Now you can copy that file and create a new file with your first page you want to preserve the filename.xxx to. Then integrate your content between the

<!-- Begin content -->
...
<!-- End content -->

Code (markup):

tags. Adjust your header for description, title and keywords. Then upload the file to your temporary subdomain directory and see if it works. Depending on the theme you use, the sidebar may need to be replaced in a different location. That's fine. All you are trying to do here is strip out the code/content of where your sidebar and footer are, in the template.html file you saved, and insert the php lines of code that will pull these in.

Once you have all your pages converted over to pull in the sidebar/footer code, you can open your sidebar.php file, copy one of the existing sections and paste it just below where you copied from to create a new section. Then add links to your existing page to that area, so that they are part of the overall sidebar.php and will display on your site.

Once that's done and working the way you like, remove your root directory files, then move the files in your subdomain directory to the root. Just before doing this though, go to your Admin and set the base directory of your site, so that when you move it to the root, WordPress will work.

That should get you going! Hope it helps.

GTech

 

Wow thanks a lot! Looks like it's going to be another sleep-less night

 

Excuse me, I use Wordpress inside my site, may I ask what is PR? I just started using it a week ago and I've focused my attention on Design.