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SEO, Site Promotion, Marketing: Apache rewrite engine or static pages??

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    Hi guys!

    I have a client that currently has very good SE position under specific keywords.
    I'm going developa new application for him.
    Most of the current pages are static .html pages on a server hundreds of them.
    The application will use dynamic URLS so most of the static pages will be gone.
    I suggested him to use Apache rewrite engine to duplicate existing website structure of his website even thought those pages will be gone by SE still will see them the same way.
    But he still very concerned about it so as second option I offered him ability to generate static pages from new backend.

    What is the best approach to go about it?

    Best, DS
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    There should be no difference at all with, say, an actual file called static.html and dynamic.php?page=static served as static.html to the search engines or the users.

    Also, I'm pretty sure you could make a painless transition if the new setup is working at the time you delete the old files, so that there's zero chance of any of the robots getting a "page not found" hit.

    •  
      CommentAuthorcrash_D.
    • CommentTimeNov 3rd 2007 edited
     permalink
    Phase A at local serer:
    1. Develop the new application with the same structure as in the previous static site, and with whatever dymanic horrible urls, only make sure you have no more than 5 parameters and each parameter value is shorter than say 10 characters... longer variable values might be considered as sessions...
    2. Code the mod_rewrite rules and make sure that all new urls exactly equal the old urls... and MOST IMPORTANTLY, to save the rankings, make sure that the content on them does not change much (not the layout, but the content)... if SE's come and see a different page, they might change the SERP for it (provided it is not as highly backlinked as cssbeauty for example)...

    edit: dont for get to configure inbound links to point to rewritten pseudo-static .html's and have the dynamic urls 403-redirect users to pseudo-static urls

    Phase B on web server:
    3. Prepare everything for upload and upgrade. Must be between 4 and 6 AM, to make sure people don't encounter errors on the page, this is the time peolple are less likely to hang out on your site.. ftp clients ready, passwords, files, sql dumps, schema, images, - everything must be ready.
    4. Ugrade by removing the older versions (having created a full backup) and installing the new scripts, apache rewrite stuff, and databases... try to upgrade as quickly as possible so that SE spiders don't get you.. configure the scripts and test the site

    With these four steps, you will not damage your SERP and user experience... and will kindly and accurately upgrade your site from older static to new DB driven project...

    good luck

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