New site using existing page names

  • TeqToo

    (@teqtoo)


    10 years ago

    I am building a new WordPress site for a client whose current site was built with Dreamweaver. I’m creating the new site in a sub-directory so the old site will continue to display until the new site is finished and approved.

    The client wants to have the pages in the new site reflect the old site structure, as those pages come up pretty high in search results. From what I’ve been reading about permalinks and custom structure, I’m thinking that perhaps the best way to go about this is to wait until the new site is completely ready, then move the contents out of the sub-directory, and THEN change the structure according to what I read here: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/how-to-change-page-id-to-page-name. Does this seem like the most reasonable way to do it, or am I missing something?

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Matt Knowles

    (@aestheticdesign)

    Do the current pages in the old site end with .htm or some other extension?

    There are plugins that allow you to add .htm extensions to WordPress pages, but when I’m doing site redesigns, I use the .htaccess file to add permanent redirects from the old pages to the new pages. That tells the search engines that the old page has been permanently moved to the new URL.

    Thread Starter TeqToo

    (@teqtoo)

    They’re .htm files. I didn’t think of that….how SEO friendly is doing a redirect from an old, high-ranking page to a newer page with the same content?

    Matt Knowles

    (@aestheticdesign)

    It’s actually the method that Google recommends.

    https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93633?hl=en

    Thread Starter TeqToo

    (@teqtoo)

    OK, I did some sleuthing with my web host – the current site is on a Windows server, and we’re building the new site on the same server to avoid having to relocate it. The host says, “.htaccess is an Apache server configuration file and so isn’t going to do anything for you on a Windows server. But you can use a web.config file containing rules for the IIS URL Rewrite module that pretty much mimic anything you can do with mod_rewrite, so pretty permalinks and 301 redirects, I would have both, are all very possible”

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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