Hopefully someone can give me a few tips and tricks. I have a large site, approx 4000 pages, which half static and half dynamic . They have names like XXX.shtml because they use server side includes for data.
My problem is, I have redesigned the site to use PHP and most of the pages are dynamic, I don't want to have people clicking on a google link and getting a 404 error because the old page won't exist anymore.
I know that eventually google with switch to the new pages but what do I do in the meantime?
Should I use a redirect or a rename? Is there some kind of global statement that I can use to avoid having to put in commands for 4000 pages?
Will a redirect work if the page being redirected from no longer exists?
I have played with .htaccess a little bit but it seems to be black magic.
Thanks for the help
Ken Graser
a simple rule there might look like:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} \.shtml$
RewriteRule (.*)\.shtml $1.php