.htm and .php versions of the same site

[shambeb]

Over the past 2 months I have updated my site from .htm to .php, to make it easier to change navigation etc. I now have 2 versions of the same site, the .htm page has PR or 3 or 4, the .php page has a PR of 0. (e.g. www.mysite.co.uk/page1.htm, www.mysite.co.uk/page1.php. My index page only has the .php version of navigation, so visitors only see the php version of the site.

Q1. What is the best way to migrate from the htm version to the php version and keep the PR.

Q2. I seem to have been dropped by google, (yahoo and msn ok) is this because google I have duplicate page with the same content (I did make small house keeping and SEO changes during the php update)

Any help on this would be much appreciated.

[Span]

shambeb,

the best way to update .htm to .php is to not change your file extensions but instead make the server parse your .htm as php. No duplicate content, no redirects, no PR problems.

If you want to keep the .php you have to 301 redirect all your old pages to the new ones. If your site is on an Apache server, do a search for 301 [google.com]

[shambeb]

Span,

I like the idea of phasing the .htm but have not got a clue of how to do it. But if someone could explain this to me, I would be very grateful.

In case this is beyond my techie skills, my host has "C panel X" with options for permanent or temporary redirects is one of these a 301?

[Blackie]

Yes, permanent redirect in your cpanel is exactly the same as 301 redirect.

When it comes to parsing .htm as if it was .php, this can be done in the Apache configuration. Ask you hosting company if they can set this up for you. Or simply test if this already is the case. Simply rename a .php file to .htm and try to access it via browser to see what happens.

[tbear]

Do a search of this forum on G, you should find something like this is recommended for the parsing fo .htm as .php....
AddType application/x-httpd-php .htm .html
Check it yourself though :)

Oh, and welcome to the forum...

[shambeb]

Blackie, have upload a .php page saved as .htm, the page shows ok in IE however the php includes (for left hand navigation) do not appear.

[shambeb]

tbear thanks for the welcome, and advice.

I have tried to search the forums, however the search does not work for me, just takes to a thread about search not working!.

Would be very helpful if you could post the URL link to the thread you refere too.

Thanks, sorry to be a pain

[tbear]

Oh, sorry, the built in search was never too helpful.
Search webmasterworld [google.com] using Google, you should get several (hundred) threads there.

[shambeb]

Thanks for the advice guys.

I will turn all my php pages to htm and use that pharsing stuff.

Thanks for all the advice

Heres some intstructions of how to makes the changes via Cpanel, if anyone is interested:

Parsing PHP in .htm/.html files

To have our servers parse PHP code in your .html and .htm pages you will need to modify the .htaccess file in your public_html folder adding the following lines:

AddType application/x-httpd-php .html
AddType application/x-httpd-php .htm

This can be accomplished by modifying the public_html/.htaccess file manually or this can also be done via the MIME Types icon in your Control Panel.

- Login to your Control Panel
- Click on the MIME Types icon
- In the "MIME Type" field type or paste this:

application/x-httpd-php

- In the "Extension(s)" field type the extension
you wish to have parse PHP code (ex: .html)
- Click the Add button

You should now see "application/x-httpd-php .html" listed under "User defined MIME types". If you wish to add other extensions repeat the process above for each extension.