Convert Old HTML, PHP Website to WordPress Without Change in URL

Convert Old HTML, PHP Website to WordPress Without Change in URL. No change in URL, no loss of backlinks but the full advantage of WordPress. Detailed Guide. For the sake of getting more knowledge, you can read our previous guide on How to Convert HTML to WordPress content.

Importance of Using this method to Convert Old HTML, PHP Website to WordPress Without Change in URL

This method to Convert Old HTML, PHP Website to WordPress Without Change in URL has various advantages. The first and foremost important point is explained by the title – this method to Convert Old HTML, PHP Website to WordPress Without Change in URL – no change of URL means no loss of backlinks.

If the website is smaller (less than 600 web pages approximately), you can follow the Manual Method to Convert Old HTML, PHP Website to WordPress Without Change in URL. If its bigger, use Automated Method to Convert Old HTML, PHP Website to WordPress Without Change in URL. The common method remains the same.

Where this Guide to Convert Old HTML, PHP Website to WordPress Without Change in URL Works best :

• Your old website has all webpages with .htm or .html or .php or .aspx or .anything and you want to shift to WordPress
• Your old website has some webpages with such extensions
• You have a Bloggers blog, want to shift to self hosted WordPress (a bit modification needed)

Advantages of using this method to Convert Old HTML, PHP Website to WordPress Without Change in URL :

• No change in ULRs
• Full WordPress functionalities
• Works with both WordPress Pages and Posts

Convert Old HTML, PHP Website to WordPress Without Change in URL : The Common Part

The common part is nothing, but a work on WordPress default permalink structure. Its better to work on a separate domain with no FTP content. Later you can change the URLs (for your original domain where you will install WordPress later) by using Search and Replace Plugin. Please read on WordPress.org for the instructions for Moving WordPress. This extra work will ensure that your existing old website will have less downtime.

Install WordPress on the working test domain and Go to Settings and Permalinks :

The problem was actually for my 67 years young friend Dr. Ray Schilling; a quite renowned person with non-ever ending enthusiasm to learn and currently reading WordPress for Dummies. His old website had hand coded webpages with php extension. Moreover, they had an “article” thing in the middle of the old ULRs, like this :

We created a category named as articles and changed the custom permalink structure to :

If you need .html extention, it would be .html instead of .php. This part of extension has no actual function. %category% for Dr. Ray Schilling, solved the /articles/ in the url of a webpage.

This ends the common part of the guide to Convert Old HTML, PHP Website to WordPress Without Change in URL.

Manual method for moving old pages : Convert Old HTML, PHP Website to WordPress Without Change in URL

Go to old webpages individually, use the browser’s tool “View Source” and copy all the part of the real old webpage content, paste it in a new WordPress post or page (does not matter) :

• Title : Title should be of old webpage
• Permalink : You must be careful to override manually, WordPress will try to make space replaced by hyphen, if the old URL had underscores, you must copy paste it by clicking Edit button beside Permalink and then publish it.
• Images and other contents : If your old website had a separate folder, do not forget to upload the whole folder. You have to change the path of Media files in WordPress from wp-admin/options-media.php. This is important for caching and uploading to CDN automatically.

Automated Method to Convert Old HTML, PHP Website to WordPress Without Change in URL

Automated appears appealing, but there not much shortcut really. You have to syndicate the old websites all pages (full content) as RSS feed. Then you need to install a kind of content scrapper plugin like WP Robot and scrap your own old website to new WordPress.

If you are thinking its of too much work to Convert Old HTML, PHP Website to WordPress Without Change in URL, keep in mind – there is not a single easy fool proof way to convert. This method is fool proof with the expense of manual works. Still the benefit is really great. You can hire a person for the copy paste part if the old is too bigger.