Changing File Extensions

does it affect PageRank?

[esmeraldainfo]

Go easy on me here... this is my first post and I am fairly new to SEO. Anyway, I am trying to change pages from .html to .taf and I don't want to lose any PageRank if possible. My questions are these....

After I create my .taf pages, how do you suggest I set up linking/redirecting? i.e. Should I change any page that currently links to my .html pages to now link to my .taf pages? Will this kill my current PageRank until the spider comes through again to recalculate PageRank? Or Should I redirect to these pages from my current .html pages? If I do this, will the PageRank of these new .taf pages be lower because they are a redirect?

I just don't want to lose any PageRank with this conversion.

I hope this makes sense.... Thanks.

[jatar_k]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld esmeraldainfo,

Go easy on me here
don't worry we're a pretty nice bunch here :)

When the pages are changed you can use a 301 redirect moved permanently, spiders will eventually swap over the urls, it does take some time.

If there is no grand reason for this I would leave it as is but that's just me.

What the heck are .taf pages?

[pageoneresults]

Hehehe jatar_k, I had the same question when this topic was first posted. Apparently it is a vendor specific extension (Birdstep Technologies RDM Database and/or Tonline DB File).

I too would be asking the same question, why do they have to change over to .taf? If it is mandatory, then I might take a peak at doing some Content Negotiation at the server level to hide all of the extensions and not have to worry about it.

P.S. jatar_k, Birdstep Technology is a provider of enabling software technologies for the embedded and wireless marketplace.