Converting site to a CMS. How do I keep my ranking?

Old URLs will be changing...

[Sootah]

I am updating my sites to a content management system to make life easier for myself when it comes to adding content, etc. The current static HTML system sucks, and is WAY too tedious for even the most menial of tasks.

I have really good ranking with some of my articles, many of which have direct links to them.

SO, how do I convert my site to the new system, and still keep my rankings in the serps with the slightly different URL?

I was thinking 301 redirects for each old address to the new one. Will that work, or will I be committing AdSense suicide once I get all sites revamped? (I'm doing the smallest, least trafficed site first. We'll see how that goes.)

Suggestions?

[wanderingmind]

I have no experience with a changeover to a CMS, but if possible, keep your existing pages out of the CMS. Let them remain as static pages, linked through a sitemap page or something... That is I am planning to do.

[drshields]

You know what, I just lost my pagerank AND my SERP (previously #1 in Google) after I did a CMS implementation. At this point I am kind of regretting it; I hope that over time it will get back up to where it used to be regarding page-rank and serps...

[quixote]

Have you considered getting your server to parse PHP in HTML pages (with .htaccess)? It's a breeze to set up and will allow you to use your CMS and keep your old page names (probably).

One of my sites is in the process of converting from static HTML to a dynamic site, and we have had no problems (no server lag etc) with this method and our external/SE-indexed links all still work! (And BOY is updating ever easier.)

Good luck with your conversion!

[Brett_Tabke]

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