I purchased a site a few weeks ago, basically 250+ pages of static html. To make one change means 250+ changes, and it is a huge paim. I have decided to move the site to wordpress. I am in the process of doing that, but I want to make sure of a few things before I make the final leap. 1. I have set up permalinks in WP, and I am making sure all my pages line up with the old pages, and the new pages look like this: http://www.mysite.com/jet-blue while my current site, everything looks like this: http://www.mysite.com/jet-blue.htm Will I need to set up a 301 redirect for every page, or just one redirect for everything? If it is just one redirect, how would I do that? 2. If I figure out the redirect, will the redirect cause me to lose traffic/ seo placement/ranking? 3. Any suggestions you may have for me? Thanks for your help!
If its just a case of removing the .htm extension, you can easily setup a regex expression for your redirect that will handle all files. A 301 redirect is for permanently moved files and the search engines will recognise this and transfer your rankings, etc. across to the new locations. It sorta depends where your traffic is coming from but no, visitors will also get redirected. The only possible loss would be from exchanges, link trades or whatever - if a system hasn't been coded properly, the script may not recognise the moved header. If for any reason the script has to check what is on your page (e.g. a reciprocal link) and it can't find it, you may get your link disabled.
Thanks, that is kind of what I was thinking. Sounds like the moving will work out ok, as I get closer, I will probably come back for help getting the regex right. In looking at AWStats for the last year, I would say about 98% of the traffic is coming from search engines, G mostly. Thanks for the help!