From Static to Dynamic

[nlgordaz]

We have a 1700 page static, HTML site that needs to be converted to a dynamic site.

This site is very old (launched in 1995) and ranks very well for thousands of competitive keywords, some of which are extremely competitive. For instance, it ranks on the first page in Google, Yahoo, and Live for one keyword that gets over 13 million searches a month. And it ranks on the first page for several other million+ search per month keywords.

Obviously it is absolutely imperative that we not lose or hurt these rankings after the switch to a dynamic site.

I need to find out the process to go about changing a static to a dynamic site that is as SEO friendly as possible.

Is there an authoritative guide for doing this? How do I do this?

I understand mod-Rewrite is involved, but how so? I need a step-by-step process to make this conversion and retain our rankings.

[bradbox]

In the words of some very wise people: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Keep as much of it exactly the same as possible. Even to the point of keeping your existing pages as intact as possible, and creating the new dynamic site alongside the existing one, and linking to the current, existing static pages, if you can.

[rapidvectorseo]

You may have the new dynamically very well designed website but you can should not compromise with the content of your website and proper 301 redirection is must.

[Janeth]

A lot depends on the CMS your going to but with WordPress it's a lot easier then you might think. For one Yoast plugin will let you rewrite the URL's so you can keep them exactly the same.

It will also let you rewrite the title and meta tags so you can keep them exactly the same. If it was me I wouldn't change anything other than add the CMS and new design. Of course you'll need to test load times and tweak some plugins but other than the design I would keep the content, URL's, and links exactly like they are.

This way if something goes wrong you'll know it has to do with the design and not the fact that you've changed images, content, URL's and so on. Once it settles in a bit you can go back and slowly start unleashing the full power of WordPress.

But again slowly as if something goes wrong you want to have some idea of what you were doing at that moment.