Transfering from PHP extension to no extension

Will Google think it is still the same page?

[flowermark]

Right now, the content on my website are named with the *.php extension. Something like:

www.example.com/flowers.php

However, we are moving to a CMS that does not allow for extensions. So it only supports this:

www.example.com/flowers

I'm wondering whether Google will treat the second URL as a new page or as the same page as flowers.php.

It would be best if Google considers "flowers" as the same file as "flowers.php", because "flowers.php" has good PR and great SEPR.

[tedster]

It is a new url, and it will be treated that way. I would set up 301 redirects from the old "with-extension" urls to the new ones. And even then, be prepared for some bumps in the road.

[Wizard]

Safer way would be to rewrite URLs so for request for 'widgets.php' server will serve 'widgets'. Apache mod_rewrite has such capabilities, and this is the only way to make Google see no change. If you start playing with 301 redirects in entire site, you're likely to be out of SERPs for a few months, depending on PR and how good you are with playing with 301 on Google - it's essential to leave links to both new and old URLs to ensure 301 is frequently crawled from high PR pages. Many people on WebmasterWorld complained that they didn't get 301 to work at all (Supplemental Result problem, see according threads).

I did such big change in URLs in one of my sites, and I was doing it gradually, section after section, to avoid loosing traffic for whole site. Each part needed at least weeks to be reindexed with new URLs, and the site is 5 years old, listed in DMOZ, having plenty natural quality backlinks.

[flowermark]

Thank you Tedster and Wizard. I am afraid of doing 301 redirects as well. Google accounts for over 80% of our traffic. Any adverse movement will be pretty deadly.

Wizard, I will give your idea a shot, thanks. Google won't consider it some kind of blackhat seo trick right?