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We're creating static pages for entire database site

How do we make the switch?

         

mona

10:13 pm on Jun 25, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



The site is a database site written in cold fusion. It's about a year old and all the pages are indexed in Goggle, etc. The programmer is using php2static to make static pages of the whole site.

What is the best way to make this switch? I'm worried about having duplicate content or being penalized in some way. I'm confused about how Google will find all the pages it once had, won't they be gone when we switch over? Or can they co-exist together?

So far I've searched through all of these threads [google.com] (on the first page) and either the answer isn't here, or I may not uderstand it if it is.

Also, I don't understand this stuff very well, so please let me know if I need to explain anything, thanks:)

kapow

8:38 am on Jun 26, 2003 (gmt 0)

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Why do you want to change from database to static?

mona

5:17 pm on Jun 26, 2003 (gmt 0)

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Well, I made a handful of static html pages and they're all ranking higher in Google than the dynamic pages. But it's made the directory very messy and again, I'm worried about duplicate content.

Is this not a good idea? From what I've read, it seems like some people have had success with it. I'm a little worried about this decision and how to go about it. This site is sorta my bread and butter;) Any thoughts or experiences with this would be greatly appreciated by those who have done this.

Chris_R

5:21 pm on Jun 26, 2003 (gmt 0)

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Are you talking about PageRank # or number in the SERPs for a specific term? If the former - it isn't accurate for dynamic pages.

If the latter was there a reason you picked those specific pages? If - for example - you took the main page and some other important sub pages - it isn't suprising they ranked better.

A better test would be to take 100 pages all on the same level and change 50 at random.

I think the challenge is getting google (and others) to crawl them. I don't think google will rank them much differently as long as they fetch them.

mona

5:31 pm on Jun 26, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



>or number in the SERPs for a specific term?
This is the reason.

>A better test would be to take 100 pages all on the same level and change 50 at random.

The pages I made static were search result pages from a database query - for a particular name brand product. I made about 20 of them.

>I don't think google will rank them much differently as long as they fetch them.

Ya, that's what I'm trying to figure out. Do you think it would be dangerous to make the static site and keep the dynamic site through one update to compare the two?

stevegpan2

5:36 pm on Jun 26, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I thought duplicate within a site is fine, isn't it?

dynamic page can have different title, key word ....

For example, my dynamic page has pr3, no matter what you search.

if you have static page, you can only have limited pr3 pages.

mona

5:58 pm on Jun 26, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



>if you have static page, you can only have limited pr3 pages.
How is this? I don't pay a lot of attention to pr.

>dynamic page can have different title, key word ....
Is there an easy way to this? I asked the programmer about it and he didn't have any answers.

If there is, maybe this would be better than making the site static?

stevegpan2

6:29 pm on Jun 26, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



mona, it is. maybe your programmer is too junior.

hm. my membership here was full member, sometime ago somehow I was downgraded to junior

DaveAtIFG

5:28 am on Jun 27, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I'm not saying any of the foregoing is incorrect but it's my impression that duplicate content should be avoided at all costs. Further, it sounds illogical that a PR ceiling should be attached to a dynamic page. mona, I encourage you to search the Google forum thoroughly for current wisdom on these issues. If you can't find clear and recent information, post these questions and see what the Google wizards have to say about them. Getting pages banned or penalized is NOT fun... I'm darn sure about that! :)

txbakers

1:20 pm on Jun 27, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



If anything, I would recommend going even more dynamic. I'm about to embark on a project that would create thousands of dynamic page views from about 3 or 4 base JSP files. Virtually everything will come from a database, and the "base templates" will have very little static HTML code.

It requires a great bit of forethought and planning, but once done, the maintenance will be minimal.

denisl

1:36 pm on Jun 27, 2003 (gmt 0)

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Mona
The title etc can contain variables that are pulled from the database - different for each page.

incywincy

2:26 pm on Jun 27, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



hi mona,

i went the other way converting static html to dynamic pages. if you combine this with the use of mod_rewrite the urls look totally static. nobody, including google, would ever know that they were dynamic.

perhaps you only have to apply mod_rewrite to allay your concerns, if this is the case, and your old urls are consistent, you can even redirect calls to your old dynamic urls to your new 'static looking' urls.

i would highly recommend dynamic pages combined with mod_rewrite

mona

5:42 pm on Jun 27, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Thank ya all for your responses:) I just forwarded this on to the technical minds on this project. I'll let you know what we decide on...