Converting a Static Site to Dynamic.

**Muddy** · 10-22-2009, 02:06 PM

Upon doing so, I'm wondering which is better, leaving the old html pages out there active (if somebody places an order on one, great!), or redirecting the pages to the new corresponding ones? My concern is losing ranking currently enjoyed on some good keywords. How do I eliminate or reduce that possibility?

infocraze · 10-22-2009, 02:28 PM

Hi, I think 301 redirects preserve rankings as per recent Google announcement, so thats what you need. Try searching Google for 301 redirect.

**Muddy** · 10-22-2009, 02:40 PM

Thanks IC, I'll check it out.

n3o · 10-29-2009, 10:29 AM

wonder why you want to change it to dynamic ?

**Muddy** · 10-29-2009, 11:45 AM

Because right now I have about 350 pages and I could easily have 2000+. At present it's very time consuming to enter the product, graphic, price, SKU #, description, size, weight, etc. for each item and then repeat the whole thing in my shopping cart script. For each item...many thousands of items. I'd like to offer my entire catalog online but as it is, it's just too labor intensive. Not to mention if there's a price change, or I want to offer a discount. Not talking about the site in my signature by the way.

seotheist · 10-29-2009, 12:47 PM

You can use .htaccess to make the 301 redirects.

**robjones** · 10-29-2009, 03:06 PM

Static pages have a huge edge from an SEO perspective, but going from 300+ to 2000 pages has a lotta benefit from a simple revenue standpoint. I'd be tempted to switch over. If it is structually feasible... yes, I'd consider leaving up the static ones and adding from there with dynamic pages.

**Muddy** · 10-29-2009, 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by robjones

Static pages have a huge edge from an SEO perspective...

Well see that's what I'd always thought, but I asked that question once here (and also of some web folks I know) and it seemed that the overwhelming consensus was that it didn't matter any more. I have great ranking on a number of good keywords/phrases that I don't want to jeopardize. That's my main concern. Losing ranking. That's what makes me question going away from static in the first place and if I do, making sure it doesn't affect my ranking.

**robjones** · 10-29-2009, 06:04 PM

Nice part about the net is that it keeps moving. Couldve changed and I missed it. Gotta run, reading a book on coding Dos 4.0.

**ScriptMan** · 10-29-2009, 06:46 PM

For what you described in post 5 above, dynamic is the way to go.

Keeping the old pages doesn't sound like a bad plan at all though I think it might be best to 301 them to the new page.

**Muddy** · 10-29-2009, 08:38 PM

Thanks for the input fellas!

I can see where you'd want to redirect if the new page had more info or products than the old one, but if the old static page and the new dynamic page both contained the same content, there wouldn't be a need to redirect would there?

Mosaic · 10-30-2009, 12:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Muddy

Upon doing so, I'm wondering which is better, leaving the old html pages out there active (if somebody places an order on one, great!), or redirecting the pages to the new corresponding ones? My concern is losing ranking currently enjoyed on some good keywords. How do I eliminate or reduce that possibility?

Hi,

As you said that you are getting good rankings by some keywords, so i would suggest to keep those keywords and just change the static page to dynamic.

**ScriptMan** · 10-30-2009, 06:49 AM

Having 2 pages on the same site with the same content might be perceived as duplicate content and result in neither of them or only one of them being listed. This is the one situation where the duplicate content worries apply.

If you want to keep them both I would vary the content a bit. You can push the same product but don't use exactly the same sales page.

grishamist · 10-30-2009, 07:32 AM

It's not a problem anymore whether you stay the two page with different page style. What seems to be the paranoia on this is the "duplicate content" but base of my conclusion, it may not consider as a duplicate content because as we all know scripts are not crawlable (a disadvantage for dynamic pages).

Of course the topic is what can you do to be stable on the rankings even you convert it to dynamic pages, the answer to this question is none but as we all know it's all about the promotion and the content, if you think what maybe the alternative on this, that is to combine static and dynamic content.

**Muddy** · 10-30-2009, 09:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mosaic

Hi,

As you said that you are getting good rankings by some keywords, so i would suggest to keep those keywords and just change the static page to dynamic.

Hi, thanks for the reply. I'm not sure what you mean though. I would certainly keep those keywords in my meta tags, but I think the content plays a large role too, no?

**Muddy** · 10-30-2009, 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScriptMan

Having 2 pages on the same site with the same content might be perceived as duplicate content and result in neither of them or only one of them being listed. This is the one situation where the duplicate content worries apply.

If you want to keep them both I would vary the content a bit. You can push the same product but don't use exactly the same sales page.

Thanks S-Man. Maybe I should just redirect, take the hit, and hope that the ranking returns for the new site. Like Rob says, there's a definite advantage in revenues due to drastic product increase.

**Muddy** · 10-30-2009, 09:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grishamist

It's not a problem anymore whether you stay the two page with different page style. What seems to be the paranoia on this is the "duplicate content" but base of my conclusion, it may not consider as a duplicate content because as we all know scripts are not crawlable (a disadvantage for dynamic pages).

Of course the topic is what can you do to be stable on the rankings even you convert it to dynamic pages, the answer to this question is none but as we all know it's all about the promotion and the content, if you think what maybe the alternative on this, that is to combine static and dynamic content.

Hi, thanks much. So you're saying that the fact that one page is static and the other is dynamic, in itself will change the content enough that SEs won't consider the pages duplicates. That makes sense.

Something that concerns me though is I seem to be getting mixed messages from what I've read and heard. Many now say that there is no SEO disadvantage to a dynamic site vs. a static one. This has not been the case historically however and what you says supports that: "scripts are not crawlable (a disadvantage for dynamic pages)".

Can you please elucidate on what you mean by "combine static and dynamic content"?

Thanks for your time, I appreciate everyone's input!

**ScriptMan** · 10-30-2009, 12:37 PM

If scripts aren't crawable then there should be no pages in the SEs for this forum.

Database sites other than forums and blogs may not get crawled quite as fast but they are crawled. Flash based sites on the other hand don't get crawled be the bots can not read flash.

As for duplicate content why not just read what big G says on the subject:http://www.google.com/support/webmas...n&answer=66359

**Muddy** · 10-30-2009, 12:55 PM

Why not indeed?

Thanks Mr. S!