Switching HTML to CFM pages: will I lose rankings?

I need to switch to a database backend, will I lose ranking?

[xdrone]

Our website is positioned high on Google for the search term [snip]. It is becomming a pain staking task to manage the content and links. It's very messy and we "must" switch to a database backend but we fear we would loose ranking. Could anyone please shead some light on the best approach to doing this?

HELP!

[edited by: pageoneresults at 11:32 pm (utc) on June 2, 2004]
[edit reason] Removed Specifics - Please Refer to TOS [/edit]

[pleeker]

If you can't keep the file names exactly the same, then for your users be sure to employ a good 404 error page. And for the SEs, maybe try 301 redirects on ALL of the old URLs, pointing each one individually to the appropriate new page. This will minimize the loss in rankings due to file name changes, but it won't eliminate it completely. It'll take a few weeks at minimum, perhaps a few months, for the SEs to figure out the new page URLs. (Depends how often your site is currently being crawled....)

[dazzlindonna]

Depending upon how much control you have over the web server, you can direct the web server to parse all .html files via the ColdFusion server. In that way, you could keep all your old file names exactly the same, put CF code on them, and have the cf server parse them - even if they have the .html (or .htm) extension. Then, it would be like nothing had changed, as far as the search engines are concerned. For example, to do this via IIS:

Add a script mapping that maps the .html extension to the CF .dll files. You'll want to map to the same .dll that you see the .cfm extension mapped to.

Right click on the web site in IIS. Choose properties. Choose "Home Directory" tab. Click "Configuration". Add the mapping.

If you are using a hosting company, you might have to ask them if this is something they are willing to do for you. It does add a little overhead.

[xdrone]

Thanks for responding ....

Spooling html pages through the ColdFusion server is the solution. But I would also like to expand the site to have additional dynamic content, surveys etc.

Is it a risk to have cfm and htm extentions on the same site?

Thanks

[pleeker]

Is it a risk to have cfm and htm extentions on the same site?

Not in terms of SE rankings.

[dazzlindonna]

You can certainly mix cfm and html files with no problem. And of course you can use dynamic elements and pages - that's the whole point of switching to cfm pages after all. :)

[xdrone]

Thanks for the info....

All the best
xd