Switched formats - .asp to .php - what about my page rank?

former home page was /main.asp. new home page is /index.php

[Hubie]

I had a PR 6, for numerous reasons had to switch from .asp to .php format. I made the change, switched hosts and everything. Now no PR shows up (shows a 0/10). All my traffic seems to remain steady. What's going on? Will I get my PR back? At the least it was nice to brag about!

Hubes

[zulu_dude]

You should do a 301 permanent redirect (assuming you're running Apache) to let Google know that the page has moved.

From what I've heard, that redirects your page rank. But most importantly, this also means that links to the old ASP page will still work after changing to PHP.

[Hubie]

ok...done. now here's the thing...does my PR go to mydomain.com or mydomain.com/home.php?

where should I point the redirect, to the domain name, or the domain name plus the extension the home page is on?

Hubes

[monkeythumpa]

Point it to the corresponding page.

www.mydomain.com/puppies.asp -> 301 -> www.mydomain.com/puppies.php

www.mydomain.com/kittens.asp -> 301 -> www.mydomain.com/kittens.php

Now the exception would be that I would point your index page to this:

www.mydomain.com/index.asp -> 301 -> www.mydomain.com/
and make sure you move index.php above index.asp (or remove the .asp) from the list that the server defaults to for directory listings.