Search engines and migrating a static site to a web app

Question

We're replacing a static web-site with a Django app. All the uri's will change. The current web-site has a substantial presence on the search engine rankings and we don't want to mess that up too much. Is it simply a case of setting up 301 redirects to the new uri's, or is there something more subtle we need to do to ensure the search engines understand what's happened.

Answer 1

301's should in fact cover it.

Searchengines are generally pretty good at this :)

Answer 2

Normally when you change your site you will get a hit on your search result page rankings which will last for about 2-4 weeks.

Apex Internet has a good article on setting up the 301 redirects on both Apache, IIS, and other variants. Take a look here.

Steven Hargrove also has a good article on it here with a follow up here.

In addition, Webmaster World has a thread on the impact of the 301's updating in Google, Yahoo and others as well as tips and a little more advice. Take a look at that here.

Lastly here is a article from Google Groups on Dynamic vs. Static URL's that touches on changing structure and how it maps.

I was hoping I would have more information for you and a way to use the robots.txt file to help keep the rankings up when you start the migration. I'll keep looking and see what I can find for you. Cheers and good luck!