Wordpress To Static Website

Discussion in 'HTML & Website Design' started by sport302, Jan 26, 2013.

  1. #1
    Hello,

    I have a few older WordPress sites that I simply wanted to convert to traditional static websites so they are easier to maintain, since I really do not update them much anymore.

    I have one question though...

    The WordPress websites have a permalink structure that does NOT include the .html at the end.

    Example:

    mywebsite.com/page/

    instead of

    mywebsite.com/page.html

    So I would have to add a mod_rewrite to my .htaccess file that drops the .html extension when I upload the new static .html pages in order to maintain the old WordPress permalink structure.

    My question is will the search engines still read my website with the old permalink structure or will they consider the new .html static pages as my website?

    I am just not sure how the search engines will interpret the mod_rewrite. Will it end up creating two versions of the website, one with .html and one without?

    I just do not want to cause any harm to the current rankings of the websites.
     
    sport302, Jan 26, 2013 IP
  2. diziadvice

    diziadvice Member

    Messages:
    460
    Likes Received:
    5
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    33
    #2
    May be. I am not sure. Recently I have converted my Joomla website to wordpress, the link structure of joomla is /index.php/page-name whereas the link structure of wordpress is without index.php but the search engine could reach the site, while the index.php urls are indexed on Google.
     
    diziadvice, Jan 26, 2013 IP
  3. ekatronik

    ekatronik Member

    Messages:
    19
    Likes Received:
    0
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    41
    #3
    in exactly, you may not change your .htaccess for put .html on your page name.
    if you using wordpress, only go to Setting --> Permalink
    choise coustome permalink, and type %postname%.html and all your posting at wordpress will be name www.yourweb.com/post-name.html

    I think, you must to re upload your URL to google webmaster for your change. coz. google bot will be cannot detect your .htaccess change effect to.

    but, have one plugin (i forget what name) to redirect your old permalink to new one.
    this plugin will working to save your old permalink, if you change permalink structure, this plugin will redirect visitor to new permalink.

    chaiyooo... :)
     
    ekatronik, Jan 27, 2013 IP
  4. sport302

    sport302 Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    351
    Likes Received:
    1
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    103
    #4
    I think there may be some confusion. I need the old WordPress permalink structure to remain on the new static version of the website, because I have thousands of backlinks out there without the .html extension.

    So if I tried to simply reload all of my pages now with the .html extension, all of those links would be bad.

    Is there a way to upload static webpages without the .html extension?
     
    sport302, Jan 27, 2013 IP
  5. Rukbat

    Rukbat Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    2,908
    Likes Received:
    37
    Best Answers:
    51
    Trophy Points:
    125
    #5
    The page will load, but as a text page, not as an html page. Depending on the web server, you might be able to tell it to load files with no extension as html pages.
     
    Rukbat, Jan 27, 2013 IP
  6. ekatronik

    ekatronik Member

    Messages:
    19
    Likes Received:
    0
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    41
    #6
    yes, In my mind
    you need that plugin (i'am forget the name)


    It's ok if you have thousand backlink,
    for example,

    you have old link (with thousand backlink) and the visitor click old link
    with this plugin, if visitor come with old link, they will redirect (redirect 303 (CMIIW))
    and, the visitor will see new link but same page.

    sorry, if my explain confuising you...

    chaiyooo... :)
     
    ekatronik, Jan 27, 2013 IP
  7. Masim man

    Masim man Active Member

    Messages:
    73
    Likes Received:
    4
    Best Answers:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    58
    #7
    If you still can access new links from old links, the search engines will read your website with the old permalink structure. But the problem with this is search engines will start indexing your new links and that's a big problem (duplicat contents.)

    So, if you are really good at mod_rewrite, it's a good idea to use 301 Mod Rewrite Rules, it will keep your website PR and incoming links as well and it's search engines friendly.

    Don't ask me about Mod Rewrite, I really don't know anything about it. But I had experience using .htaccess to redirect a single page.

    Redirect 301 old-page http://www.mywebsite.com/new-page
    Code (markup):
    i.e.

    Redirect 301 /page/ http://www.mywebsite.com/page.html
    Code (markup):
    But it would be pain to do if your site had a lot of pages.
     
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2013
    Masim man, Jan 27, 2013 IP
  8. Nick Son

    Nick Son Member

    Messages:
    23
    Likes Received:
    0
    Best Answers:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    41
    #8
    i think if you want to use static website, you can download a software to download all of this site, then upload it again.
     
    Nick Son, Jan 28, 2013 IP
  9. sport302

    sport302 Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    351
    Likes Received:
    1
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    103
    #9
    I think this mod_rewrite would drop the .html from the new static .html pages so the old WordPress permalink structure would remain:

    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.html -f
    RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/$ $1.html
     
    # Forces a trailing slash to be added
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(\.[a-zA-Z0-9]{1,5}|/)$
    RewriteRule (.*)$ /$1/ [R=301,L]
    Code (markup):
    However, I am still NOT sure if the search engines will be picking up both the old WordPress permalink structure as well as the new .html static pages causing a duplicate content issue?
     
    sport302, Jan 28, 2013 IP
  10. seoverx

    seoverx Peon

    Messages:
    11
    Likes Received:
    0
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    1
    #10
    can anybody tell me the script source of this site
    http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites/
    i want to buy it.
    Thank you
     
    seoverx, Jan 30, 2013 IP
  11. jamjar919

    jamjar919 Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    332
    Likes Received:
    7
    Best Answers:
    5
    Trophy Points:
    180
    #11
    Craigslist use their own scripting I believe.
     
    jamjar919, Jan 30, 2013 IP
  12. sport302

    sport302 Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    351
    Likes Received:
    1
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    103
    #12
    Ok, so this mod_rewrite does work for what I am trying to accomplish. However, I can still type in both versions of the URL with and without the .html and they both will display using the above mentioned mod_rewrite.

    The question I have left is how do I make sure the search engines never get confused and think I am posting duplicate content?

    Say for example someone links to my website and adds .html to the end of the URL. How do I ensure that the search engines only list the none .html version of the URL?
     
    sport302, Jan 31, 2013 IP
  13. Masim man

    Masim man Active Member

    Messages:
    73
    Likes Received:
    4
    Best Answers:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    58
    #13
    That's duplicate content, that's what I was talking about.

    If you could create mod_rewrite to redirect .html version to none .html version that would be a good solution , I think.

    Or another solution is by adding the following lines into your "robot.txt"

    User-agent: *
    Disallow: /*.html

    It's sounds daft but you can give it a try and see the results in your Google webmaster tools.

    After that, It would be better, If you could avoid using links with .html version in you posts, share links, sitemap and any other links that linked to your site.
     
    Masim man, Feb 1, 2013 IP