changing site platform and maintain se rankings

how to keep my current se rankings despite the change

[nark]

The site I worked with have changed their platform from html to asp. Their domain name is still the same except the file extension has all been changed. They already have good rankings in major engines on some of their html pages but none on the asp pages since the move. Webmaster did not have any redirect, no custom 404,. If you click on any of their page one ranking, they all lead to a dead end - "page can't be found".

Could you please advise me on the most reliable way for the webmaster to fix this problem. Or direct me to posts that can answer my questions. Can I expect to lose all the rankings now because of this move? I do not have the specific technical knowledge as webmasters. As webmasters yourself, is it common to completely disregard ranking pages when changing platform.

Please advise. Thank you.

[nark]

Moderator,

My apology if this is an inappropriate forum to post to. Please move my post to other forum if you think it should.

Thanks.

[EliteWeb]

Setup 404 pages redirect to homepage or you can do fancy scripting and have the script take whatever url it came from replace .html with .asp and push them to that page. :)

[Mark_A]

Never used asp but is it not possible to embed asp script within html named pages?

Could frame the old pages and present the new asp ones as no frames content and main visible contents?

Just an idea.

[NFFC]

A bit late now but...they could have left the pages named as before, just processed them through the asp engine, easy to do on IIS.

[wilderness]

IMO the best solution is using htaccess to redirect.
It results in server side and notifies the SE's in the process of the changes, if done properly.

[webmasterworld.com...]

I implemented this recently with some 30+ old pages and folders moved to my other domain.

[nark]

Thank you all for the tips and ideas. From reading other posts, I am looking into the possibility of using redirect with .htaccess. And will take this idea up with the webmaster. Boy...don't know what possess him, seems like we are running into a big mess :( At least we get to learn something here.

I'm not the asp expert so please bear with some dumb question. With NFFC suggestion, does this mean you can name your pages as .htm extension even though those pages are processed through asp engine?

Thanks again.

[littleman]

Wilderness, odd are he's on an IIS server, so no .htaccess. Nark, yeah that could be done pretty easy if you have access to the server configuration. Or if your IIS guy is competent AND a nice guy you could ask him to make the modifications -- though that is a rare combination with MS administrators.

[nark]

littleman...nope, I have no access to the server configuration. I have a feeling I'm screwed. It's either using .htaccess unless it's IIS. I'll do the best I can, man. The more I think about it, the more I want to choke my webmaster. :(