.shtml and .html question need quick response

[TRIPAAA]

Hello, I hired a coder to program some tournament feeds for me, he wants to change the .html file extentions to .shtml and use htaccess to make the .html files still work with all the existing backlinks. My question is will this mess up the search engine rankings and view them as new pages?

Please only respond if you really know the answer for sure? THX a million.

[losercore]

Sorry I am not sure exactly what the code is doing. Sounds like he is changing html extensions to shtml and the is going to have a re-direct so all your links and indexed pages stay the same.

if this is the case then:

If the htacces is done right it wont make any difference. Just like any other redirect. All the html pages will point to the shtml pages.

Now, if these pages have PR than yes this will affect this. You will loose PR on the html pages that are now shtml. These will still be looked at as new pages just using a 301 re-direct for the SE's to maintain all your links and ranking positions. PR does not copy over in this case.

Also, SE's do not care about html or shtml or any other extensions. They treat them all the same. So if you have no PR on these pages it makes no difference.

[TRIPAAA]

thx losercore, that is what is suspected but didnt know for sure. I wanted to past come code by my logo on all my pages to show how many players and tables their are at a room. But if i do this the codes says i have to rename all my page to include the new extention .shtml instead of .html i dont want to do this. so i only did it on one page that didnt have pr. If anyone know another way please let me know. It seems their has to be away to insert xml or rss feed data with out having to rename your html files.

Again thx losercore !

[losercore]

This can totally be done via AJAX. If your site is hosted on Windows you can use Microsoft's new AJAX (ASP.net Ajax) It's pretty awesome. MS jas come a long way in the web development all.

You can look into to using Ajax. If you are on Linux then you can just search for Ajax and figure it out.

Ajax is the combination of XML and java.

If you are hiring a coder ask about using Ajax or straight XML. Not sure a RSS feed here is what you are looking for

[TRIPAAA]

The coder said it could not be done, im sure it just him limited understanding at a proper approach at the solution. Ajax seen really dynamic. I will check it out. In the mean time i am doing a htaccess for the .shtml to display at html so all my back links will still work. The feed was xml not rss as originally thought.

[losercore]

If your feed is XML you can use AJAX without a doubt. You need a new coder.

Talk to a developer about AJAX and find out if your host allows PHP5. if so you have some new DOM/API options not available in PHP4 that can take advantage of what Java used to do but you do it via PHP. Very snazzy stuff and you get the benefits of Java and the SEO of PHP. Gotta love this stuff.

Again if you are on a Windows host (does not sound like you are) the MS AJAX with ASP 3.0/3.5beta is fantastic.

Anyway I would find a coder that does a lot of AJAX work and maybe even try to find one with PHP5 experience as well.

[losercore]

On a second thought. i am a little confused on why the coder is having you change page extensions.

Here is what i got of this. You want an xml feed to be displayed on every page. Is this correct?

You should not have to change any page extensions for this. Not Html to Shtml anyway. Unless your coder is using CGI or Pearl for this. Not sure why this would be the case. I could see MAYBE someone saying you need PHP extensions but even that is far fetched. I may be off on what you are doing so I apologize for this.

Otherwise, adding an xml feed should not require page extension changes in most cases.

I would go to digitalpoint and ask some coders about AJAX

[TRIPAAA]

Thanks for the feedback , i will give it a try right now i still think their is a better way than the way the coder did it. I cant seem to let it go. I just want it right.

[geoffvro]

Your coder is probably using SSI - you can add the following code to your htaccess, and apache will parse any included coded without a redirect or change of file extension.

AddType text/html .html .htm
AddHandler server-parsed .html .htm

[Notspot]

I use .shtml 'cos I find it very simple to use for SSI (server side includes), it means I just have one version of certain files (such as the footer and right hand index) and the server dynamically calls those files for each page. Saves updating lots of different files everytime I change something.