Moving a static site to a dynamic one

key issues to consider

[maxgoldie]

I am planning on moving a 5 yr old static site with 500 pages to a dynamic one, using Wordpress as a mock CMS. The main issues I have thought to consider are SERP-related: putting in redirects from the old static pages to the new URLs. What would be the best way to do this -- by adding an htaccess in each old directory with the new redirects?

My main reasons for migration to CMS are scalability and management. Plus, some static pages are far too large and need to be (reasonably) paginated, so there could likely now be approx 2000 pages, where the old site had 500.

Are there any other potential pitfalls in doing this? I would appreciate hearing some of your experiences with this sort of thing.

[laertes]

Plus, some static pages are far too large and need to be (reasonably) paginated, so there could likely now be approx 2000 pages, where the old site had 500.

I would keep this part of the project seperate. Make only one change at a time, so you can monitor the results better and upset the SE's less.

[maxgoldie]

I figure that the SERPS would be affected either way for a short time, but due to the number of high PR backlinks I have, things could be normalized quickly.