How to manage upper and lower case URL migrations?

[Whitey]

We have an old website dating back to 2004 that's having a revamp. Trouble is, it is being moved to Wordpress and they apparently only publish lower case URL's, when the existing site is Upper_and_lower.... so I opened up a line of questioning specific to that here : [webmasterworld.com...]

Actually I wonder if they accept underscore [ I believe they do ]

Additionally, I guess there is a mod rewrite option, but I guess I need some advice separately on that.

However from a purely Google standpoint, when there is great sensitivity and nervousness around SEO stability, does it really matter one versus the other ? Does the redirect potentially destabilize a site [ provided it is done properly ].

These sites are not exactly high quality at this stage, but we have to migrate and will push good quality content into the new design asap.

[goodroi]

IMHO you should always try to avoid mixing upper & lower case in the urls and don't use underscores. It is not a big thing but it can lead to confusion and mistakes being made.

From a Google ranking perspective it does not have a direct impact on rankings IMHO. I have done many massive redirect moves and Google has handled them well except for the times when someone did not proofread the redirects for webmaster errors.

It can have an indirect impact on Google rankings. If you incorrectly redirect the old uppercase urls, you'll have trouble. If a blogger links to you and mistakes an upper case I for a lower case l, you will end up with a 404 and missed link opportunity. Little things like this can indirectly impact rankings.

I would advise you to be extra careful if you are redirecting a huge website. Less because of Google and more about avoiding a 100mb htaccess file.

[lucy24]

more about avoiding a 100mb htaccess file

When I saw the subject line I sat on my hands because this isn't the Apache subforum :)

[Whitey]

Less because of Google and more about avoiding a 100mb htaccess file.

@Goodroi It's around 7,500 redirects, so would maybe you suggest lessening that to say half or more? There's no IBL's involved.

The developers have alerted me to the site being slowed up with a large htaccess file slowing down the server, and speed is important for us. But balanced against stability.

@Lucy24 - I'm not sure I fully understood your comment, but it was me being paranoid about stability with any site changes that may effect rankings in the Google SERP's to maintain traffic. Not so much Apache question. As I mentioned the content on migration is not good [ scripted with wildcards ], although the UI/UX is vastly better.

[lucy24]

Do you really have 7500 separate redirects in your htaccess file? If so, you do need the Apache subforum :) But first make sure exactly what you want to do. How to do it is a whole separate question.

The developers have alerted me to the site being slowed up with a large htaccess file slowing down the server

If goodroi was serious about the 100MB htaccess file-- though frankly I don't see how you'd get there with a mere 7500 redirects (at 10 lines/k, it should be less than one MB)-- then your developers have a point.

[goodroi]

I have seen alot of super silly things and 100mb htaccess is just one of them. You can use wildcard rules in htaccess to avoid having 7500 individual redirects and Google will follow it just fine.

I agree with Lucy24, if you want help about how best to handle htaccess (like wildcard rules) you should head over to the Apache subforum because those people are wicked smart [webmasterworld.com...]

If you have questions about how Google rankings respond to redirects, then this forum is the right place.

Good luck.

[Lorel]

It used to be that words separated by underscores in the file name would not rank as well as words with hyphens, because Google treats hyphens as spaces and underscores as underscores. Maybe Google has overcome this problem now. You might change one, wait a few weeks and see if there is an improvement in ranking before changing all of them.