html site to php?

[tmmmandm]

how can i turn my pretty large html (ssi) site -> into a database driven site without losing page rank, design and layout and MY MIND?

[John]

link to your site?

:o

[vegasgwm]

I dont understand what John meant, but linking would mean that you need to make 2 sites.
Oh trust me, it's quite a job. For me it was the other way around. I started with a dbase driven site, then when i thought it was time for SEO, I had to go rewrite a lot of code.
If you can spend money, pay people who do these things for a living. But if you're like me, you can self-teach yourself all u need to know to do it, roll up your sleeves and brace yourself for a big job.
the main thing will be URL-REWRITE, meaning eventhough your links look like html pages, they're actually php or asp... pages.
Then you have the issue of pages that are allready indexed by search engines, those need to be redirected to your new dbase driven pages as if they never changed. It's all in the url-rewrite. I think most of the time will be in carefully planning this. Good luck

[redsox9]

I dont understand what John meant, but linking would mean that you need to make 2 sites.
Oh trust me, it's quite a job. For me it was the other way around. I started with a dbase driven site, then when i thought it was time for SEO, I had to go rewrite a lot of code.
If you can spend money, pay people who do these things for a living. But if you're like me, you can self-teach yourself all u need to know to do it, roll up your sleeves and brace yourself for a big job.
the main thing will be URL-REWRITE, meaning eventhough your links look like html pages, they're actually php or asp... pages.
Then you have the issue of pages that are allready indexed by search engines, those need to be redirected to your new dbase driven pages as if they never changed. It's all in the url-rewrite. I think most of the time will be in carefully planning this. Good luck

Hi, Veasgwm:

Would you expand on this topic? As I understand it, you are saying that the files are called as HTML documents but are actually PHP? I've heard of this technique but I'm not familiar with that. Do you have a reference point or a FAQ out there somewhere that explains this in more detail?

I ask mainly because at the moment I am going from an HTML-only site to a PHP-only site but if I can continue to look like HTML content, then why not? I don't think that it would make a difference with PageRank and/or indexing...

[hofmax]

There are 3 ways to rewrite your urls in order to make them more "search engine friendly". I am not sure wether the old mantra that dynamic urls choke crawlers still holds?

This article gives a good overview of the three methods employed in
url rewriting (http://www.phpriot.com/d/articles/php/application-design/search-engine-urls/index.html)

I would like to hear some more thoughts from other members if dynamic urls are still as bad for seo as they used to be. I´m thinking of the possibilities that "Google sitemaps" offers. Yahoo has something similar where you place a text file with all your sites´ urls in the root directory.

Cheers

Max

[vegasgwm]

Hi, Veasgwm:

Would you expand on this topic? As I understand it, you are saying that the files are called as HTML documents but are actually PHP? I've heard of this technique but I'm not familiar with that. Do you have a reference point or a FAQ out there somewhere that explains this in more detail?

I ask mainly because at the moment I am going from an HTML-only site to a PHP-only site but if I can continue to look like HTML content, then why not? I don't think that it would make a difference with PageRank and/or indexing...

Hi Redsox9
I just saw your post today. If you're still interested i can find some more links for you. I know i bookmarked a bunch of 'm. That article from Hoffmans links seems pretty good, haven't read the whole thing yet.
Remember my situation was reversed:

I went from php like this:
http://cglv.com/rudina/index.php?letter=543.php
to html like this:
http://cglv.com/rudina/show_letter_543.html

the url rewrite that does that in your .htaccess file would be:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ([a-z]+)/([a-z]+)_([a-z]+)_([a-zA-Z0-9]+)\.ht.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule ([a-z]+)/([a-z]+)_([a-z]+)_([a-zA-Z0-9]+)\.ht.*$ $1/$2$3.php?$3=$4 [L]

this is a simple one, but the point was to make the site SE friendly by removing the ? and & signs in the url, which realy chases them away.

Sorry i'm busy today, but after i send you the links, if you still wanna we can colaborate on it some more. I'm not an expert in this but perhaps i can help.:)

[Kaneda]

Using Content Management System to manage your layout easily and your content...

large html file(s)?? site...

[grantgarvey]

Another guide on MOD_Rewrite http://forums.devshed.com/apache-development-15/mod-rewrite-guide-common-requests-267522.html