Losing your SERP ranking when moving from Windows to Linux

How to avoid it

[coburn]

We're about to move from our Windows server with mostly .asp pages to LAMP.

Challenge is that most of our backlinks refer to our .asp pages... and we desperately can't afford to lose our top SERP spots on G.

Question: Would a simple Mod Rewrite rule telling the SE's that /x.asp is being replaced by x.php be enough to keep us in number 1 position?

Thx

[Nutter]

I assume you're moving to PHP. You could just set up Apache to parse .asp files through the PHP engine. Then you wouldn't need to worry about serps. Not the 'cleanest' solution, but it should work.

A permanent redirect would be cleaner, and _shouldn't_ penalize you.

- Ryan

[ogletree]

Just put

AddType application/x-httpd-php asp

into your .htaccess file and you will be fine. Don't do any redirects it will hurt you for sure.

[coburn]

Thx for the feedback guys.
We can do the .htaccess route as described for all pages simply changing name from .asp to .php.

What of the pages that completely change URL?
Anyone have a definitive answer on what's 'safe' for G?

[ogletree]

You can use mod_rewrite for that. Try not to change URL's if you can. If taht URL does not get any se traffic then just change it.