how to convert static to dynamic...?

[pagetta]

having just read the previous post about dynamic Vs static site i have what is fundamentally a basic question but something i haven't until recently had to think about:

Our company's site is a static site. it isn't in pure css (yet), so when an update needs to be made site wide it takes a large chunk of time and a lot of copy & pasting. This wasn't a problem at first but like any site it has grown and grown and now I am wondering the best way to manage the site.

Hopefully it will soon be redesigned using css/xml nice tableless design which will make aesthetics easier to update, but in terms of content what is the best way forward here?

I am unsure about converting to php as our main product pages that currently do well in the 3 major SEs are all .html pages and I am worried about the effect changing to php may have on these - although i know using the htaccess i can redirect and eventually these pages would perform wel in their own right, would this be worth the short term loss of rankings (or am i totally off the mark with that assumption?)

Our main content updates come in the way of adding new product pages, adding news stories and updating product information.

Any advice here would be much appreciated - I've only before dealt with small static sites now this one is expanding and expanding i'm not sure the best way to move it forward! thankyou

[WebMasterKrames]

I think you can set up php to treat .html pages the same as .php pages.

Then they could be dynamic but look exactly the same to SE's.

[imvain2]

You can accomplish by using the htaccess file to force the server to run all html/htm files as if they were php files, so the Search Engines will never know the difference.

Stolen from this post: By Kristos

<Files *.htm>
ForceType application/x-httpd-php
</Files>
<Files *.html>
ForceType application/x-httpd-php
</Files>

[claybutler]

You can have your programmer set up your Content Management System to render out the dynamic pages with .htm or .html extension. You can even keep the same file names if you like or even have file names generated automatically by using the Title tag(example:"your-keyword-rich-title.html")With PHP and a good programmer you can pretty much have anything you want. Just need to ask as most programmers don't worry about stuff like marketing, SEO and rankings.

[langsor]

I'm not an SEO pro, but have been designing sites for ~7 years and you learn about SEO or fade away. I've recently been working on just your issue with converting my and a client's site from .html to .php

What it boils down to, is that a search engine makes a request to your server in the same manner as a web browser (visitor/client) would. So, what happens on the server is NOT revealed to the search-bot/spider, it just gets the results of that request.

If you use mod_rewrite or a similar approach to make your slight-of-hand on the server end of things there shouldn't be any impact on your SERPs, the search-bot should never know.

Please correct me if I'm mistaken, I would like to be certain on this point as well.

[DrTandem1]

Yes, I used that code in the .htaccess file of a site to allow for PHP features and kept the .htm extensions as they were. The site is and has been number #2 in Google and #1 in MSN and Yahoo for a very generic keyword term. So, it works.

If you must change a page's file name for whatever reason, be sure to use a 301 redirect to the new page.

[fred!head]

As langsor notes above, mod_rewrite has much less impact today on your search results than it used to have. I used MoveableType (which outputs static pages) then switched to a tool that used mod_rewrite and saw my numbers crater. That doesn't seem to happen as much these days.

But this experience has made me very sensitive to how CMS tools output pages. My strong preference is to have static pages. Not just to be 100% sure the pages can be spidered easily but also to ensure my clients "own" their pages on their server. If they want to get rid of me, it's no big deal for them to migrate to another web professional.

What you describe, making global changes across multiple pages, can be done with some HTML editors using regular expression search and replace. HomeSite used to be able to do this, circa 1999. But I would agree that it's ultimately limiting.

So I would look at a number of CMS tools with an eye to how they output pages and if they can output static pages with any file extension you like, for example .html pages or .php or .cfm or .asp pages. That's the holy grail. Moveable Type does this but I suspect there are others, although I have not found many after years of looking at dozens of programs and building a few lightweight ones. And some people hate the wait while the CMS publishes multiple pages.

Good luck.

[mikefromvt]

Hi.

By switching from static you can do real damage to your SEO. We publish thousands of static pages very easily and very accurately with our scripts. The scripts run on our servers, not on yours where they could potentially be a problem (security). Check us out for further information.

Mike
http://www.bestplainwebpages.com

[imvain2]

Originally Posted by mikefromvt

Hi.

By switching from static you can do real damage to your SEO. We publish thousands of static pages very easily and very accurately with our scripts. The scripts run on our servers, not on yours where they could potentially be a problem (security). Check us out for further information.

Mike
http://www.bestplainwebpages.com

By using my htaccess method, the search engine rankings wouldn't negatively be affected since the file names will be the exact same.

This almost sounds more like a sales pitch then anything else.

[mikefromvt]

Sorry if it sounds like a sales pitch. Having once been a Post Nuke User for more than 4 years, I have, unfortunately, had very poor luck with .htaccess files, mod_rewrite, etc and found what has resulted as a much better way for me.

Mike
http://www.bestplainwebpages.com

[lpoulsen]

We are about to do the same thing, and had many of the same concerns. After some research, we are now determined that we will move to the Joomla CMS using the OpenSEF extension to keep the page names Search Engine Friendly. This will allow us to retain the exact same external URLs for all existing pages.

[jtracking]

Originally Posted by pagetta

I am unsure about converting to php as our main product pages that currently do well in the 3 major SEs are all .html pages and I am worried about the effect changing to php may have on these - although i know using the htaccess i can redirect and eventually these pages would perform wel in their own right, would this be worth the short term loss of rankings (or am i totally off the mark with that assumption?)...thankyou

When I changed my site over to php for the same reasons you did I found that I did quite better in the SEs. I converted all my pages to php pages without using the .htaccess file (sorry) and I still did better...

There must be SO MUCH to consider when trying to work the the search engines and I must say that honesty always works best for me. : )

[imvain2]

Originally Posted by mikefromvt

Sorry if it sounds like a sales pitch. Having once been a Post Nuke User for more than 4 years, I have, unfortunately, had very poor luck with .htaccess files, mod_rewrite, etc and found what has resulted as a much better way for me.

Mike
http://www.bestplainwebpages.com

I apologize for assuming it was a sales pitch, just sometimes with first time posters and some of the wording, it sounded like a sales pitch.

Anyways, for my suggestion, the server will treat html/htm files as PHP files so the content can be edited via a DB but the file names will never change.

[bj]

Two of the dynamic programs I work with, ModX and WordPress, allow you to create a site structure pretty much exactly like what you have, if you're clever.

You can also just do your pages using php includes and use the .htaccess trick. I use it on the few static pages I have (which run php but are extension .htm)

[activeco]

There are always some ways to find out if files are static or dynamic (e.g. checking etag headers, although this could be faked too), but fortunately it seems not important today.
I like jtracking's reply, so I have to repeat it:

I must say that honesty always works best for me.

[bj]

Honesty is one thing. Inbound links are another. If you can dupe the site structure, it really is the best option. If you can't then you need to redirect so you don't lose traffic and SERPS. I'm sure there's the odd exception, but not doing so is generally not healthy for SE position.

[DrTandem1]

Depending on your host, you can add this line to a .htaccess file:

AddType application/x-httpd-php .htm .html

You can then add PHP code to existing HTML/HTM pages and they will be parsed as if they are PHP pages.

[LinksAndTraffic]

I had to do this on one of my sites that had over 3000 pages.

I converted the static pages by spider and by hand to a mysql database.

Next, I wrote php software to serve up the same pages in the same fashion that they were originally served up. Then, I set a RewriteRule in the .htaccess file that would in essense take the identifying info from the original url path and use that to pull the same content from the php/mysql system.

The search engine sees the exact same url it has always seen, but now the page is being served through php, templates and mysql.

Now, when I want to change the layout of my pages, I change one template file instead of 3000 static pages.

All pagerank and seo value was retained, and I received a system that will let me be a bit more flexible in the future.

It was painful to move the pages from the static to the database, but it has been worth every minute spent doing so in regards to expanded features to share with my visitors.

[simonwheatley]

On topic:
I agree with what many people have said above, keep the URLs where at all possible (as as people have pointed out, it is possible so don't take no for an answer from any contractors) and use 301 (permanent) HTTP redirects to inform SEs and human visitors that pages have moved permanently.

I agree with LinksAndTraffic, having your pages in a centrally managed dynamic system will be worth every minute you spend making it happen.

Wandering off the track a little:
I understand that SEs used to have a big problem with dynamic sites because it meant that they could get stuck indexing almost infinitely deep levels of content due to badly designed navigation. In those (bad old) days, their crawl capacity was a lot less than it is now, so that was a concern. Accordingly they reduced the crawl rate for dynamically generated sites and/or didn't go that deeply into them. This may have been compounded by dynamic sites being slower to respond, and so slowing the crawl further.

(Fast forward to now.)

I believe that current SEs, certainly the majors, do not have a problem with "dynamic looking" URLs. So pretending your .php pages are .html pages is not necessary to avoid "dynamic" penalties.

However...

(As other posters have said.) The major issue here is to keep the same URL structure, or at the least to use 301 HTTP redirects.

What does an ideal URL look like... a discussion for another day, perhaps? I will quickly note that when you're planning your site, you should design your URLs to be technology neutral. What does that mean? That means that they look like this: http://www.example.com/some/article/. (Note the lack of a file extension.) In this way, whenever you do switch technology, from HTML static pages to PHP, or ASP to Java, or whatever, you don't have to mess with your site URLs. Plus human visitors (apart from web geeks) don't care about what tech you're using, they care about using your site... it's just 4 more characters which might be typo'd when someone enters one of your URLs manually.

More on the ideal URL:
http://robert.mathmos.net/webtips/urls[/b]

[pagetta]

Thanks for all your responses they have really given me some food for thought!. having spoken to the other web site manager in our group of companies I have decided that a CMS would not be the way forward as due to certain factors in our company it is better for us to have full control over our code.

I think the way forward for me will be to put sections of the site into separate php files and then get myself some serious htaccess tutorials on the go!

There are a couple of options in these replies - can anybody tell me if it is better to use 301 redirects or a rewrite of the file names? Dr tandem your mthod sounds like it might be a simple way to add php functionality to our site.

In terms of the url structure i have recently changed all internal and what external links i can so that the structure is www.mysite.com/productname/ however our leading product page which performs well in all SEs has a full filename URL it is this page that worries me in changing to php.

thanks again

[simonwheatley]

301 redirects will provide you with the best (but not guaranteed) chance of retaining SE & link juice if you NEED to move a page. If you don't need to move the page, then keep the existing URLs.

If you're converting pages to use PHP, I recommend using the methods described above (by DrTandem amongst others) to force Apache to treat pages with a .html extension as PHP files. This means you'll get the advantages of a dynamic file, but keep the current page rank with SEs and inbound links. Your URLs don't change.. everyone wins!

[pagetta]

great thanks simon!
luckily for me i'm off on holiday for 3 days now so i get a nice break before getting on with all this work!