RapidWeaver Forums

For the use of Cumulus Tag Cloud I needed to change
my blog site from .html to .php

Now google cant find my pages anymore.
It finds the original .html page, but that one is removed;
you get ‘404 Not Found’ because the page ends with .php now.

How long does it take for google to index my site again?

Are they removing the original .html pages?

What is the best thing i can do in this situation?

thanks.

You need to enable a 301 redirect which is fairly simple. Just do search for 301 redirect.

seyDoggy - 27 November 2008 07:31 PM

You need to enable a 301 redirect which is fairly simple. Just do search for 301 redirect.

Thanks,
I did a search, but i do not get it, sorry.

So i need to place a code on the original blog .html page. (in page Inspector Header?)
Does it re-direct all of my ± 80 blog entry’s pages?
But, all of the original blog .html pages are gone, i only have the blog .php pages left.

(or adding:
<?php
Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://www.site.com/index.php” );
?>
in the page inspector header of the blog .php file?)

Do I make sence?

I should have specified Google search for 301 redirect: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=301+redirect

This is probably your best source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL_redirection#Techniques

seyDoggy - 27 November 2008 09:32 PM

I should have specified Google search for 301 redirect: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=301+redirect

This is probably your best source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL_redirection#Techniques

? did u only read the first line?
ofcourse i can do a google search myself…

i found many pages with solutions,
but for my case i do not understand what to do exactly ..

dbakker - 27 November 2008 10:05 PM

? did u only read the first line?
ofcourse i can do a google search myself…

Haha, yes I read it but misunderstood.

From the wikipedia list, which technique scares you the least? From there I will guide you through.

I do not mind which technique is being used.  The most easy one i would say.. 
They all look a bit scary for me.

just remember:

all the blog pages stayed the same, only the file extension changed.  .html to .php

http://www.site.com/files/abc.html > http://www.site.com/files/abc.php
http://www.site.com/files/tag-x.html > http://www.site.com/files/tag-x.php
http://www.site.com/files/catagory-y.html > http://www.site.com/files/catagory-y.php

The original .html files are Not in the files-folder anymore (I thought i could remove them..)

(Eventually i could re-create the html files again (if I need those) by saving my site in html again, so i have all blog files double .html and .php)

The .html files are the files found by google, result: 404. Now that needs to be the .php file.

many thanks for helping me!

To be honest, the solution I almost always opt for is the .htaccess 301 redirect and there is a great tutorial on .htaccess files here: http://blog.dreamhosters.com/kbase/index.cgi?area=3083

The only URL you’ll need to redirect is the top level one (the blog main page), all other links will eventually die out, but the new links from the index.php will propagate nicely with the html file out of the way.

You need to check if your server has an .htaccess file. If so, open it and add one or both of the following lines (depends on how your server is set up). Be careful with the second line as if could cause you to go into an infinite loop. I suspect only the first line is needed.

Now of course you are going to have to fill in all the appropriate paths so it’s best you backup anything before starting, that way you can always go back and try again.

I Did it!!  wow Thank you very much! 

I learned a lot!

I did not have a .htaccess file on my server so first i had to find out how to make that. 
easy:  make a htaccess.txt file in teksteditor and move it to the server and rename it to .htaccess

Then i tried the first line of you code, that did not work
I tried both and that worked!!

Typing all the paths of the changed files was the biggest job, lots of copy and paste..

but my problem is gone!!  Google re-directs my pages!!

thanks again.

That’s great news.

This tutorial might be useful for this topic:

http://rick.cogley.info/goodies/reference/rick-cogley-error-handling-in-rapidweaver.php

Cheers,
Rick Cogley