Greetings! I'm in the process of re-designing a static site to use the Joomla CMS. One question that i have is about the best way to deal with redirecting the old pages. Obviously I don't want people or hte SE's to get a "Page not found" error when they're looking for one of the old pages. What kind of redirection should I do? I also still have to make the URL's search engine friendly in Joomla. Would it affect me negatively if I publish the new site with standard CMS type URL's (i.e., index.php?option=view content&...) and later when I get the SEF URL's working, redirect the standard URL's to the SEF URL's? Would it be worth it to wait to publish the site until the SEF URL's are working right? Thanks for any input! --Larry
Good choice. I've been using Mambo (pre-Joomla) for the past few years and it's been great. I would pay the $$ for SEF Advance. I would then set up a spreadsheet with your old static URL's in one column and the new SEF advanced URL's in column 2. When it's all set up, just login to your cPanel and set up "permanent" redirects. In my experience, your PR will transfer and Google will eventually make the switch. I think this is your best bet. Set up Joomla with your new SEO friendly URL's and then permanent redirects from your old static pages. Keep your static pages live until the move and Joomla is completely set up. Good luck.
Yeah, i've been really impressed by Joomla so far. Ok, it sounds like you've had good results from SEF Advance. Have you taken a look at OpenSEF at all? It seems like they're developing a really good product, though it's not quite ready yet. That's the main reason I haven't gotten the SEF URL's figured out yet, because I'm not sure which way to jump! Thanks a bunch! It sounds like this is what I need!