Seo - Compliance with international standards 
Author: Joabe ArrudaHello guys, first wish a good day everyone and thanks for reading. =)
Stefano/Elisa...
It's been a long time (about 3 years) since I talked about it, but it seems that you do not consider something relevant, because you have not yet corrected.
However, I do not understand, because this is rather something VERY RELEVANT AND IMPORTANT for SEO.
So I'll speak again and try to make it clearer and with examples...
Even defining htaccess rules, what we achieve is this:
Why is this bad?
Simple, this can cause placement to fall in search engines and total loss of backlinks.
And if at some point the user is migrating the site or transferring to another CMS, or who knows how to change the back end with another programming language and does not do the url targeting as it was before, he will lose all his SEO work and will fall dramatically into organic positioning.
In addition, this can confuse search engines and cause indexing problems for some referrers.
And the error here is in the final code that WebsiteX5 exports, it formats the html and inserts the links along with the file extension and this is terrible.
See below how it should be:
https://url.clica.bio/test/the-correct/
If you look at the url above, both the url in the browser appears friendly without the extension, as well as the links. This is the correct way to export a project, ready to publish meeting the standards. This way no matter what the programming language (extension) is, links will always be reached.
We did this manually, but the correct thing is that the CMS itself does this automatically, removing the extensions from the code files. For after all this is what cms is for, make things easier.
Author
NOTE:
The template used above is for exemplifying purposes only and this environment is testing. =)
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Whether with or without .html doesn't matter, many well-known German websites still use the .html ending. So why shouldn't WebSite X5 use extensions anymore?
So you "super SEO heroes" what do you say to that?
Author
This is very easy to answer, they are outdated. :D
They do not follow international standards, do not apply security measures and proper coding on their websites.
Or, they just don't need or don't want to apply SEO or site ranking strategies. It depends on the project or objective. It is not an absolute rule, but it is a standard for those who seek positioning and mainly; want to maintain positioning after any kind of technology update or migration. =)
Everything else I made very clear and detailed above, just does not understand who does not really understand and does not work with customers or with digital marketing and organic positioning. That is, just does not understand who does not know anything about online positioning strategy. :)
Author
Imagine that you have a production site, suppose that on this site you have a page "https://mysite.com/my-product-1.html"
And this page is in Google's 1 or 2 placement or any other search engine, you have a well-positioned and in-great-placement page that took months or years and a lot of work to rank.
1. Okay, this is great! But then, for some need or purpose, you would need to make this page more interactive or insert any automation or advanced implementation and maybe even an external interaction or better, connection to the database. Booom, that's when the bomb goes off. :D
2. You can leave the old page in .html active, yes of course it can, but it would have to redirect to the final page, i.e. the page that received the required update as needed.
2.1 Therefore, this final page needs to be created with some programming language. Let's assume here, .php, because you made it interactive and automated, right?
What's next?...
You have no control over the "engine cache", so you can't just remove the .html and insert the .php into the "link that's cached" and if you don't do a redirect, it goes to page 404, and then it would be an even bigger, no-return problem. And of course you wouldn't want to leave the content outdated, so logically you opt for the 301 redirect, ok all right, but...
3. Search engines will understand that the page in .html is redirecting to another extension page and different "content," so instead of updating the content, the engine will simply recreate the cache and reevaluate the content again. By losing placement, and depending on what has been modified, changed, removed, or inserted on the page, you may even be penalized according to the guidelines and it will be more difficult to rank pages in the domain. :)
i - But why? There are many evaluation bases and one of the main ones is; the engine understands that your site may have been maliciously hacked or changed and once again Boom, goodbye your positioning. :(
ii - The mechanism may understand an unusual or malicious practice, such as phishing or attempting to trick the visitor.
iii - The mechanism can understand that the site has changed ownership and may be from another niche, segment or branch of activity and the like.
iiii - The engine understands that this can be annoying to the user, click a link and be directed to another. Or worse, the target link doesn't work as it should.
I could cite many other bases that the engines use, but it would be unnecessary here, not least because each algorithm has its own basis. :)
Therefore the importance of not maintaining the "extension", because this way you can make any change and simply send an update to the engine, the algorithm will understand that it is the same page, having only its content updated.
And so on... and so on... and so on...
Sorry if I don't understand much of the text that Google is translating into German.
Well-known German website with .html, see
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https://www.ndr.de/ratgeber/verbraucher/index.html
https://www.oekotest.de/essen-trinken/Ist-Tofu-gesund-_12945_1.html
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I agree with Joabe Arruda. It is very important according to the new SEO rules.
A problem that the "very clever" SEOs make themselves.
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#9 What about extensions like .html?
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... but has no advantage at all, has no disadvantage at all.
From German website, see link below - May 5, 2022
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----- German / Deutsch -----
Ein Problem, das sich die "ganz schlauen" SEOs selber machen.
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#9 Was ist mit Endungen wie .html?
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... hat aber überhaupt keinen Vorteil, hat überhaupt keinen Nachteil.
>> https://blog.bloofusion.de/url-seo-faq/ - 5. Mai 2022
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Author
Daniel W,
- Friend, you clearly don't understand SEO or how search engines work and even worse, how algorithm and indexing work. So, if I understand this, I see that it will not be beneficial to continue to debate. :)
A word of advice:
never comment negatively in any community about something you don't really understand or are unsure of, you end up diverting the main objective clearly explained.
A suggestion:
Study better how organic and permanent ranking techniques work in practice, find out about the good practices of organic positioning and the strategies used to achieve good placement. =)
When I look at the well-known websites in Germany, there are some without .html, some with .html and others that use both.
That means for me, it doesn't matter if .html is written at the end.
If you really want to get rid of the .html, you should do it.
That it is better without .html, the supposed SEO experts can certainly prove with Google, right?
Author
How can this be so hard for you to understand? :D
Man, forget about these amateur tips! I have nothing more, no less than 14 years of experience with marketing and development focused on organic positioning and online positioning strategies for websites and social networks, I am CEO and digital marketing specialist at Digital Services Ltda and currently we have more than 70,000 satisfied customers worldwide! :)
So, yes, there's a problem when I say there's one. :)
I'll try to make the CLEARest POSSIBLE HERE:
1. Who says you can't use ".html," ".php" or whatever?
1.1 Of COURSE you can use with the extensions you want and this DOES NOT AFFECT IN ANY WAY the SEO of your site. Point here!
2. The problem is when; you CHANGE this (remove, add or swap) for any need or reason whatsoins.
2.2 I made this clear in the above explanations, reread!
3. If you go up a site with extensions and never need to change this, of course you won't have any problem.
3.2 However if at any time you need to change a page .html to .php or modify to any other; and this page is in a good position on Google or any other search engine, that's where you'll have problems.
4. So knowing this, note that...
PS: It is good practices always develop/build any website, any system, any blog, any e-commerce etc... WITHOUT ANY EXTENSIONS, POINT! :)
Why?...
Simpler still:
This way, no matter which extension you change later, for whatever reason/need, the links will never be broken or need to be REDIRECTED.
The X of the question/problem:
The focus here is not what can or can not, but rather THE GOOD PRACTICES! This is so clear and easy to understand.
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So and again, if you or anyone here who reads doesn't understand this, are in the wrong profession or are just enthusiasts. :)
Many internet gurus don't talk about it because most of them don't understand and don't know, they simply replicate what others hear talking about. ;)
Author
Now I wonder here:
Why hasn't Elisa or Stefano responded yet?
Can anyone tell? The support or suggestion here no longer works?
I've been telling them about this for years. :)
But I understand, analyzing the logic and structure of wensitex5, it would be very laborious to adapt to these good practices. Then I guess we won't have this. :/
I suggest improvements just because a while ago (years ago), the websitex5 helped us a lot in some projects, to advance some things (but we always had to make many adaptations or direct corrections in the exported code), and the absence of these good practices on extensions is one of the main reasons we do not use more because it is extra work. We have more than 100 tools that allows us to advance a lot and we would like to future, who knows, reinsert the websitex5 in this medium, for some cases.
Fortunately now we work 100% with our own CMS. But here's the suggestion.
This is why I am reluctant to do things on a page that will force the X5 to convert it from html to PHP.
I have a site https://bramminginfo.dk
On that site many pages have a good ranking. Many pages is in top 5 on Google.
A search on:
arnbjergparken
klg natursti
endrup naturpark
lille mallorca
riberhus slot
Should show a result with bramminginfo.dk pretty high in the results.
There are also many that is in top 1, but then the danish charcter set is required.
What will happen if I use an object that will turn a page into a type of php?
If I leave the old html it will still be found. But it will be the old page that is the result. If I remove the old html the user will be met by a 404.
The php page will be a new page - also for the search engines. It will then have to make the crawl to the top in the search indexes - again.
Well - I could make a redirect as a 303 by manually make an entry in the .htaccess like:
RewriteEngine On
RedirectMatch 301 /yourold.html /mynew.php
RedirectMatch 301 /another.html /second/path/
RedirectMatch 301 /contact.html /contact-us.php
BUT if the X5 produced pages without extensions there would be no problem with the earch engines and we did not have to make manual entries in the .htaccess
Author
Boom! Here's a practical example of what I'm trying to explain. :)
It just doesn't have what you do, not as best as it should be, and that's what I've been discussing above.
1. Your site has the pages in .html and with good position in the search engines (as said by you).
2. Search engines cache your site pages indexed as ".html" and if you change to ".php", any user who clicks on your page that is cached on google or any other search engine will go to 404, this is because the server will not understand that the page is now ".php".
3. Your only option now is to permanently redirect ALL pages ONE to ONE.
Will this work and keep your site on the air with the new page extension? Yes, of course you will. But...
Rest assured that you will undergo a new scan on the site and depending on what you have changed, will fall into positioning and will be re-evaluated again, i.e. it will start from scratch. :)
X
That's what people don't understand, no matter what your setup or what the x5 website or any other CMS can or can't do, what really matters ARE THE BEST PRACTICES!
If this had implemented earlier, you could now change your back-end technology without any problem, because the pages would not have the "file extension" and so would work normally without any problem, would only go through a basic revisit and update the cache in the search engines.
But because WebSiteX5 does not apply good practices, this will bring you additional problems and jobs. This is what I've been talking about here for years. :)
Author
Our suggestion to make the impact on your site less:
1. Redirect pages in .html to .php
2. Extremely important, resubmit your new sitemap to search engines informing you about the changes and showing the redirect, if your pages do not have many changes, the impact is less. :)
Take great care to ensure that everything is working as it should, before sending the new sitemap, otherwise the tragedy will be irreversible. :/
You must make sure that all links on the site have the new extension.
And again I say, if WebSiteX5 had applied good practices this would not be necessary and would not have any work or difficulty. :)
@Joabe - and that is exactly what I wanted to show with an example. There is no problem with search engines as long as the type is not changed - whatever the type is. But we would have no problems if X5 could handle the problem for us if it is needed to change the type-content. I wanted to show that Daniel is right about the type if the type does not change - but is forgetting what happens if the type has to be changed, and what impact this will have for the SEO on that page.
Author
Exactly!
That's what I made clear in the last post. :)
Author
To help you not make this mistake:
do not redirect ".htaccess" this would be an ERROR and can be understood as malicious by the mechanism, as this is what most hackers (if not all) do to direct traffic from hacked/infected websites.
The best option to redirect to have the "least possible impact" is to manually insert on each of the pages .html the following lines:
1. Informs that the redirection is secure and must come to its own domain (legitimate action):
2. Points a redirect of the page to the new one with updated content:
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="1; URL='https://yoursite.com/your-new-page.php'" />
3. Inform the search engines that this page is the main one and it is the one that should be presented to those who are looking for:
<link rel="canonical" href="https://yoursite.com/your-new-page.php" />
This way you keep the old pages on the server for a certain time until the search engines update the indexed cache. And this will avoid any broken page problems or possible malicious action.
Of course it's not 100%, but this is definitely the best way for you to redirect with the best chances of maintaining positioning. :)
I almost forgot to report this, I hope it helps you. =)
Author
This is advanced and professional tip that I'm delivering for free, in my country many internet gurus charge expensive in courses to teach such details. =)
Is that a mistake? :D
For your information: I did not ask for help or tips. I think I am doing well already.
Some extra information to all, from Google about redirects:
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/301-redirects
I think Google is the best oracle when it comes to questions about Google search and Google indexing.
Google advice to use 303 - better than meta refresh:
"Use permanent redirects when you're sure that the redirect won't be reverted."
303 - should have been 301 - sorry
Author
Hi again, why be rude?
Well, come on, I've never seen anywhere the statement that the 301 redirect via .htaccess is the best and indicated by Google, that's more of a balela. :D
Certainly you did not understand the article, neither here nor the indicated by you above, because there informs several ways to make redirects and all of them are valid. :)
Above I suggested only the "best option for sites in .html", which through years of testing and executions we found that it is less harmful and has better chances of maintaining organic positioning.
However, if you think you have experience or are smart enough, congratulations and good luck to you. =)
Author
Note this:
"do not redirect ".htaccess" this would be an ERROR and can be understood as malicious by the mechanism {fact}, as this is what most hackers (if not all) do{fact} to direct traffic from hacked/infected websites.
The best option to redirect to have the "least possible impact" is to manually insert on each of the pages .html the following lines:"
But if you prefer this path, you can do it and it's okay. It's just not the most appropriate means taking into account a number of other factors (which you don't understand).
Finally, this is it. =)
Sorry if I insulted you - this was not my intention.
I am only here on the forum when I think I can deliver information of a certain value - or if I have a problem or if I have an idea.
In this case I thought I could help clarify the problem about changing page type and the impact on the search engines. Just what this thread is about - at least I hope it is what it is about.
I will now leave this thread.
Author
All right, all your information here was valid and I agree with all depending on the need. But yes, you were rude in making it seem like my statement or suggestion is wrong and even posted source to confront. :)
Also, you informed that you did not ask for my help in a rude way, when in the best of intentions I shared knowledge, which most of the time I would not share. :)
So yes, you offended me in a lot of ways possible, but that's okay. <3
Thank you for your interaction. =)
Author
Any moderator, can you be so kind as to point out here for Elisa or Stefano to see?
For it seems to me that the goal and context of this post is taking a different direction to my real intention "that from the beginning was a suggestion".
If no one from the Administration responds, I would no longer see reason to keep this topic open. :)
Author
Has this optimization and suitability issue been fixed in version 2023?
Has anyone tested it?