Converting page names and se ranking

We are converting a portion of our site to xml...

[travelin cat]

We are about to make a change in the funcionality of all of our web pages from html to xml, thus page names will be changed from index.html to index.xml and so on throughout the site.

My question is how would this effect our rankings? We are number one for 3 major search terms that bring in approx. 80% of our biz and it is scaring the heck outta me to make the change.

Should I be concerned?

[encyclo]

Are you actually planning on using XML client-side (ie will the page markup be in XML) or are you just generating HTML from an XML back end? If it is the former, don't do it - Google does not like XML which it usually parses as plain text. If it is the latter, don't change the filenames at all, change your application to use the .html extension.

[walkman]

I wouldn't do it. I changed everything, but did it during a bad time on SERPS.

[travelin cat]

Encyclo, Walkman,

Thanks for the input, I'll have to discuss this with my developer.

One other thing, would the same problems arise if we used say php, so thant index.html became index.php?

Thanks again

[walkman]

>> One other thing, would the same problems arise if we used say php, so thant index.html became index.php?

as far as Google indexing you'll have no problems with php or html, and ranking would probably go where they were after a while (faster if you can 301 everything), but with great rankings and 80% of your business depending on it, I'd think 2X before changing it--unless it's REALLY needed. I'm a bit paranoid like that

[encyclo]

would the same problems arise if we used say php, so thant index.html became index.php?

The problem is the change of extension, not the extension itself. So if you used PHP, you would be advised to have .html files parsed for PHP rather than changing the file extension. You are under no obligation to use the default file extension for the technology you are using, you just adjust the server configuration (.htaccess if you are using Apache) so that the extension you are already using is parsed for the new technology.

[travelin cat]

Thanks again to both of you.... time to have a chat with my developer.