Dumb SEO Questions

(Entry was posted by Unique Websites on this post in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 07/19/2014).

What to do to convert 10 old pages from well-ranking website into Wordpress?

When converting an old 10 page, well-ranking website into Wordpress, would you:

1 Use the exact urls - this will mean a plugin to get the .htm extension for pages (post .htm extensions work without a plugin) and I have concerns as to whether a plugin will cease to be compatible with future versions of Wordpress and/or whether .htm extensions might cause any performance problems

or

2 Create new page urls and use 301 redirect

The website currently ranks well but has no backlinks to inner pages.?
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YOUR ANSWERS

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

  • Unique Websites: When converting an old 10 page, well-ranking website into Wordpress, would you:

    1 Use the exact urls - this will mean a plugin to get the .htm extension for pages (post .htm extensions work without a plugin) and I have concerns as to whether a plugin ;will cease to be compatible with future versions of Wordpress and/or whether .htm extensions ;might cause any performance problems

    or

    2 Create new page urls and use 301 redirect

    The website currently ranks well but has no backlinks to inner pages.
  • Artur Palvanov: The recommendation from Google regarding URL structure is without extensions (so /webpage, and not /webpage.htm)

    So I would setup the same pages on Wordpress, with the same content (titles, meta, etc).

    Then use a 301 redirect from old url, to new url.
  • Edwin Jonk: Normally I would keep the URL's - not only for search engines but also for likes/plus ones/etcetera - but with regard to extensions like .htm I would probably 301. ;

    Difficult choice and I don't think it will matter that much after a couple of weeks. ;
  • Unique Websites: +Edwin Jonk ;many thanks for feedback - as the current site doesn't have social sharing buttons I doubt they've got any/many social signals.
  • Neeraj Kumar: I will instead redirect my all links to the new blog homepage and let the visitor visit and do activities as per their choice. I think this will make the process easy and help the main blog to index first. Internal pages will index slowly.
  • Edwin Jonk: The problem with re-directing to the home page is that Google sees it as a soft 404 and thereby any search value will be gone. Better would be to re-direct one on one.
  • Unique Websites: +Edwin Jonk ;Thanks for info about home page redirects; I hadn't realised that.

    Mind, for this site, I would redirect page to page - unless I use a plugin for the .htm extensions so no redirects are necessary..
  • Ryan Cramer: +Unique Websites ;first thing I picked up on was that the ".htm" version was "well-ranking". If you are converting to WP, of course you'll have to do a 301 or ".htm" extension plugin, but with all the changes to the code that WP will bring, your domain will be reindexed.  ;If the site is ranking well, I would ask myself if converting to WP will have the benefits to keep the ranking up, and if my client was prepared for a drop during the reindexing process.
  • Unique Websites: +Ryan Cramer ;The client wants a new design - the existing design is 4/5 years old and no longer reflects his corporate image; he also wants to be able to update the site himself, to add new pages and to have a blog. Hence Wordpress. The new site will also be responsive.

    I'm keeping as far as possible to old coding - eg same title tags, meta tags, h1-h6 etc; same format in sidebar, same words on each page.

    URLS could be the same (minus the .htm if I don't use a plugin).

    Is there any reason Wordpress would produce a drop in ranking?
  • Ryan Cramer: The reason for changing is a valid one.  ;Usually, a hand written .htm page doesn't have the overhead in code that Wordpress brings, and a focus on the optimization of manually created pages is much better than Wordpress provides.

    Since I am a web programmer who focuses on SEO, I have no problem optimizing the templates, css, and everything else that Wordpress natively generates... adding the plugins I can get in and have the produced code and page optimized to a point you don't even realize that it is Wordpress.  ;However, Wordpress can very easily get out of hand, which is why you don't see a flood of WP sites placing as they did 10 years ago, even with all the "SEO" plugin claims for success.
  • Edwin Jonk: I would go for a CMS over any hand-coded site, because handcoding leads to errors, making changes in the main content is easier, some clients are familiar with a CMS and can add their own content, etcetera. Maybe a static-micro-site can be the corner case but every else should be on a CMS these days, no? ;
  • Ryan Cramer: +Edwin Jonk ;I hope that question isn't directed towards me.  ;With 20 years of web developing experience, I find it takes less time for me to develop a site from scratch with a custom backend and all the SEO requirements than piecing together the plugins for Wordpress. Besides, my code is more optimized, and usually cleaner than most WP plugins and ranks higher and longer than using common CMSs. ;

    But I understand that not all SEOs are programmers, and many clients have been sold on the idea of the free CMSs like WP. So I've been forced to used the bulky and limited Wordpress platform too.  ;But when faced with an option between a custom, hand-coded site that places or a WP site, I find it much easier,  ;effective, and cost efficient in the long run to do it from scratch

View original question in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 07/19/2014).

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