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 !
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Looking to remove SSL because it is causing very slow website download speeds. Does WP have a plugin that redirects SSL urls to non SSL urls?
After some extended debate with our web development team we are considering dropping the SSL from our website because it is adding almost 2 additional seconds to our download speeds. We know there is a SEO boost from having a SSL but we believe the extended download speeds maybe outweighing the benefit. However we are concerned about the SEO implications of having no method possible of redirect SSL to non SSL webpages. Does anybody know of a Wordpress Plugin that can force redirect SSL urls to non SSL urls?
Web Design | | RosemaryB0 -
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 -
Is it worth keeping .html even if 301'ing
We're going from static to a wordpress based ecommerce site. While we can append .html to urls the directory structure will change so that www.oursite.com/productname.html goes to www.oursite.com/product/productname.html My question is: Is it worth the trouble (from an seo perspective) of using a plugin to append new urls with .html when we're going to have to use 301 redirects anyway? If not should the urls have a trailing slash?
Web Design | | jbk3650 -
301 Redirect from Old Domain to New Domain
I am building a new website and I plan to 301 Redirect my Old Domain (olddomain.com) to a brand new Domain (newdomain.com) in the upcoming months. To do this I was planning to update the htaccess file on both the old and new domains. The htaccess file on the old domain would look to 301 redirect all pages on the old domain to the new domain. The htaccess file on the new domain would detail any specific URL redirects I want to implement (ie. olddomain.com/EXAMPLE/TEST will redirect to newdomain/TEST) - this will ensure link equity is retained and bounce rates are kept at a lower level. Does this sound like the right approach? Also, what do I need to do with the old domain going forward? Do I need to keep this forever in order for the 301 redirect to work or can I eventually just forward the domain to the new one permanently?
Web Design | | DHS_SH0 -
What is the code to 301 http to www in htaccess file on unix server
i want to 301 my http home page to www on a linux server and all my other redirects are set up similar to this in my htaccess file: redirect 301 /example-page.html http://www.example-page.html how do I 301 redirect: http://example.com to http://www.example.com I've tried all kinds of code recommended for an htaccess file on a linux server and nothing seems to work. Thanks for the help mozzers! Ron
Web Design | | Ron100 -
How to put 'Link to this article' HTML code at bottom of article & is it helpful?
Hello, I was thinking about putting a box down at the bottom of my client's main articles that let's the reader easily copy the html code it takes to link to the article they're reading. Maybe I'd put it after the author bio. Do any of you do this? If so, what format do you use? It has to look nice of course. This is a non-techie industry. Thanks.
Web Design | | BobGW0 -
I have a question about converting a flash site to word press
We're changing one of our site to word press from flash and the old site had no content, so everything is going to be different. Should we try to match the page names and small amount of content and large amount of meta tags for now and slowly change them, or is it alright to change everything right now? The site has good ranking and I don't want to mess it up.
Web Design | | allstatetransmission0 -
Websites with only one "html file" and page href # is good for SEO?
I bought one website from templatemonster that contains only one HTML and the pages are generated by links (PROGRAMACAO) My website: www.nextformaturas.com.br This is good in term of SEO? or it is better an website with deveral pages with diferent contents? What are the pros and cons? I really lost on this.
Web Design | | Naghirniac0