Question about replacing old site with new site and Google indexing

[ichthyous]

Hi there I am about to launch a new website to replace my old site. The new site's index page is index.php while the old site's index page is index.htm. My web host tech support told me that they just need to make a simple adjustment to the "zone file" and index.php will be the index page for my server. My question is, will switching to index.php mean that index.htm stops getting indexed? Or do the search engines continue to index whatever pages they know exist unless you delte them? I want to transition from the old site to the new one, not have my current traffic plummet until the new site is fully indexed. Thanks for any advice

[g1smd]

Why don't you set up the server so that pages with a .html filename are treated as being PHP scripts - then you don't have to change any of the filenames in any of your internal links at all?

However, whenever you call for an index file you should never actually call for it by name, just link to www.domain.com/ or to www.domain.com/folder/ and let the server do the rest.