Converting to WP - Should I add .html or 301?
-
Moving my site to WP and the old url structure pages end in ".html".
I have seen there are plugins that allow you to add .html to the WP pages to preserve links.
I am hosting on Synthesis and they do not support htaccess, although you can submit 301 re-directs through the help ticket system. My question is what is the best way to proceed? I have read that 301s "leak" some link juice, but I sure do like those pretty urls.
Advice appreciated!
-
Thanks Dan,
I will be moving to the new url structure, probably post name as I don't have a lot of "juice" to pass anyway. Thanks to Dana for bringing this up in her answer.
In fairness to Synthesis, I believe my question was not clear and on a follow up they gave a very comprehensive response to my question and actually recommended this forum!
As to the htaccess issue, I may not understand this but I believe there is no htaccess file since they don't use apache. Quite a bit on them here <a>http://yoast.com/synthesis-managed-wordpress-hosting/</a>
-
Hi Chris
As I said in the other comment (and I'm just seeing your comment here) - this is crazy! Use a different host that "likes" whatever plugin you want and allows you full access to everything.
-Dan
-
Hey Chris
Personally, I would use a different host that allows you to edit .htaccess! And I would 301 redirect to the new urls.
Go with long term. Even if you lose .1% of link value the non-html will provide a much better UX in my opinion, and you'll have a standard setup.
-Dan
-
I would go towards trying the permalinks option + plugin. It's quite easy to set up and check if it's working right away.
Let me know how it goes either way
-
I think htaccess is relative to apache and the Synthesis servers don't use apache.
Synthesis is a Copyblogger company, the folks who make Genesis, so I hope they have this figured out. I am not concerned about support tickets as there support is very responsive.
Leaning toward the 301.
Thanks
-
Excellent insight Dana, I actually thought about that when I first read the article.
Here's my take: 301 redirect does actually pass full PR. What I think Matt Cutts was referring to w(hen comparing a 301 dissipating PR as much as a link) is actually linking to an URL through a 301.
As an example, siteA.com -> siteB.com would have the same effect as siteA.com -> bit.ly -> siteB.com, as in, the link from siteA would dissipate the same amount of PR whether it's through a 301 or not. Otherwise, there would be little sense comparing a 301 to a link, since they have completely different uses (it's not like you would move your site from one domain to another using links).
Again, this is just my take, which seems most logical to me (otherwise no one would use link shortening services ever again).
-
I read that post at SEO Roundtable and I agree with Eric Enge's interpretation of what Matt was saying in the video. Here's Eric's comment in full:
"It's funny because I find this news for a completely different reason. We have long known that links from a page can't pass all that page's PageRank. No one knows how much PC is not passable, but I have always assumed that it was something like 15%.
In the interview with Matt, my working assumption was the 301 redirect passed nearly all the PR, maybe all but 1% or 2%. I never thought the 301 eroded PR at a greater rate than that.
This comment makes this sound like the 301 redirect consumes the same amount of PR as a normal link. So, my understanding of the dilution through a 301 just jumped from 1 to 2% to something more like 15%.
So now, when you move a site from one domain to another, the degradation in PageRank is quite significant!"
I would love to hear others' take on this one.
-
The .html plugin is not a redirect plugin, it's just using the permalink structure with .html at the end to also work on pages.
However, using permalinks does require .htaccess (it's how WP works), so I'm not sure how you're going to work around that.
Best of luck!
-
Thanks Dana and Mihai,
I asked Synthesis support and just got the response that they do not like "re-direct plug-ins" as they can cause issues.
So this makes me wonder if the .html plug-ins are actually redirects in disguise?
-
Hey Chris,
You can still maintain .html extension in WP. For posts, you only need to add that inside the permalink settings panel. For pages, you can simply use this plugin: http://www.introsites.co.uk/wordpress/html-on-pages-plugin.html
If you decide that you do want to use 301s to change the links and don't have access to .htaccess, you can use this plugin to manage redirects: http://wordpress.org/plugins/redirection/
The redirect-leaks-link-juice issue has been settled: http://www.seroundtable.com/redirects-links-pagerank-16419.html
Hope this helps!
-
I think this totally depends on how much authority your original pages have accumulated. If it's a really old site and you've got beaucoup links, I'd leave the .html on there. The other thing I would take into consideration is the time involved, and potential for error, when having to submit 301 redirect requests via a ticket system. That just sounds like trouble waiting to happen. I'd keep the .html if it were me. Just my 2 cents !
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What things i should do to add more attractiveness in my site?
I have 4 years of experience in feedback and survey of different companies for the people who want to learn some from online education about how to do something? and people want to get ease in daily life skills Kroger feedback provides them with a platform to learn everything about surveys and how to drive some to its highest peaks. It all works for People out there through Education SO I have now my own website ready to go but there is a problem in its on-page ranking factors I shall be thankful to you if some from you answer my question What things I should do to add more attractiveness to my site? take a look at my recent view of my site take a look at this Kroger feedback if somebody from you can answer my request??
Web Design | | SEOTOOLS021 -
We're considering making notable changes to our website's navigation. Other than 301 redirects from old pages to new, what do I need to consider with this type of move or update?
We would like to make some navigation changes to our website: www.NetGainIT.com, specifically to the services section. I know that I will need a list of 301 redirects if I do not plan on keeping certain pages, but what else do I need to consider?
Web Design | | NetGainTech0 -
Cleaning WP theme 404s in GSC
I'm trying to clean all of the Crawl Errors for my sites, and I've reached the point where I've become slightly confused. A lot of these pages that come up in Crawl Errors aren't being linked to anywhere. The ones I'm referring to are mostly pages that came with a theme that I'm using - part of the demo content - which I've since set to Unpublished Drafts. I'm not linking to these pages anywhere on any of my Published pages, yet Google is still looking for them, still showing them in Crawl Errors as Not Found. I'm assuming that Google found these pages at some point and can't find them now. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to keep setting up 301 redirects for these, or should I use the Disavow tool for these pages? I want to tell Google to forget these pages completely because I never intended for these pages to be indexed. This happens for just about all of my Wordpress websites in Google Search Console. Can someone please shed some light on this? If there are any articles on this problem, please share! Thanks!
Web Design | | Millermore0 -
301 Redirect all pictures when moving to a new site?
We have 30,000 pictures on our site. Moz will return 404's on some occasionally, but Google seems to ignore those. Should I 301 redirect all those images when we move to a new site lay-out? Appreciate your views!
Web Design | | Discountvc0 -
HTML verses CMS
Hi My site is ranking quiet well for the past 10 years although it is becoming a bit dated. I am thinking of revamping it using Modx. Will this affect the ranking . Does a HTML site rank higher then CMS or does it no longer matter. I believe one of the reasons my site ranks so well is because it is a very basic HTML design. Should I just put a new HTML template on it Thanks
Web Design | | Niteowl0 -
Does it do harm if you add a rel="canonical" tag on a page that doesn't need it?
If a page is clearly unique and there is obviously no canonical tag needed, does it hurt anything if one has been added?
Web Design | | jaychow0 -
Duplicate Page Content mysite.com and mysite.com/index.html MOZ Dashboard
According to MOZ Dashboard my site shows Duplicate Page Content mysite.com and mysite.com/index.html .What i can do for that .redirect mysite.com/index.html to mysite.com .then how can i do that using .htaccess file .
Web Design | | innofidelity0 -
Site Re-Design - Running old XML site map for 301's
Hi all, We are going to launch a new site design for our current e-commerce site. I have taken this opportunity to change some categories due to keyword research and all old categories will be 301ed to best fitting new category. So I have 2 questions about moving stuff over; 1. I read that leaving the old xml site map running for the first week, would help, because this would give crawlers the chance to run through the site and follow the 301s, which would help pass the juice. How true does this sound? 2. I was thinking of re-writing all category and sub category titles, meta descriptions and on page content. The positive of this is loads of fresh content - but doing this all at the same time with the new site launch might see some major dropping in search ranking. I've identified our top traffic keyword terms/pages, would it be more wise to leave these pages, and change the others, or would the total new fresh burst have a better impact? Cheers
Web Design | | ToxicFox0