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Hey Paul, What is the main reason of removing the extension? If you already have SEO+user friendly link structure and getting good organic traffic, I don't think you should mess around with anything. As this .php is really better than scary dynamic codes in URLs. The thing is, this change can cause you a massive traffic and ranking drop. If you can take that risk, all you have to do is to make redirection of every link and update your sitemaps. And when you're doing this, make sure to launch aggressive campaigns to maintain the flow of traffic. Hope this helps! Umar

Hi Gary, Has your question been answered? You've received some stellar responses in this thread! Christy

I would suggest creating a transitional custom page solution.  In this scenario, you keep the page itself but instead of the product information, you show a custom message such as "We're sorry but this product has been discontinued".  Then below that, you might present one, two or a few similar products for the visitor to consider, along with an invitation to browse the category that product was in. If this is going to be done, I would suggest building in a time-frame for using this method, such as x months.  At the end of that time-period, I would implement a 301 "permanently moved" redirect pointing that page to the next highest most relevant page, such as the sub-category or category the product falls within.  This way, you give users options and an opportunity to still buy from you, in a respectful way. Alternately, if you don't have any products that are essentially like the discontinued product, I would implement a 301 redirect right away, again to that next higher most relevant page, and I would suggest including a custom message at the top of that page's main content area, communicating how that product has been discontinued, if your programmer has the skill to implement that custom message based on the source of the visit...

Hi Gary, Great Question. I have made a video response with an answer for you. http://youtu.be/uLvuTjFkQMU In summary Don't 301 the page. You will lose the traffic for the .ie site. Instead, add a button to the end of the post offering more information on the UK site. Or if you are feeling fancy build a piece of javascript that detects if the user has been on the same page for more than 3 minutes then produce a popup offering more information on the UK site. Hope this helps uLvuTjFkQMU

Hi In your question you said that it was to make the url simpler for offline vanity. If that is your only requirement then a 302 would suffice, leaving the page to continue it's life in the 'health' directory If you are wanting to moving the page anyway then a 301 would be the way to go. If you are just producing a vanity URL (that does not exists online) for Offline & tracking use then a 302 would be better (I my opinion)

Hi there, Thanks for your feedback. I'm rather confused, I have just watched Matt Cutts say that this is NOT a problem can you please explain further why you think what Matt Cutts is saying is not true? Have you had experience of such issues? watch?v=Ets7nHOV1Yo&sns=em

Inhouse is cheaper for you in the long run but Agency allows you to draw upon another company's expertise and will usually cost a lot more. Go online to some of the best SEO companies in your area and check out their career sections. You'll know how to write out the job description based on theirs. Salary information is relatively easy to find. You can ask around or check out that SEOmoz Salary guide for SEOs and SEMs.

Well when I was in the same situation as you and had loads of pages that were part of an archive that were all indexed in Google - numerous with low PR - I used a 301 redirect on all of them to tell search engines of their new home. I did this in 2009 and they are all still indexed and bringing traffic into the site today - I am leaving the redirects there forever. If I was in your situation and it makes sense to put a 301 redirect on a page as it still exists just under a new URL then I would do it. 301 redirects don't cause issues with search engines when they are used properly to move a whole site from one location to another - content relocation this is their purpose. Hope this helps Gary and answers your question..

There's no ideal solution here, but I think you may have to try it, just to focus the ranking power and try to sort out what's going on.

Thanks for all your responses, I never knew wordpress could cause so many issues. Thanks again.

Yes, this makes total sense why the .ie website is still ranking. Regarding the drop for a lot of my keywords, some of them were positioned top 3, and now nowhere to be seen, no even in the index. The pages have still kept there PR but as far as SERPs go, nowhere. I was ranking for some keywords (top 10) without any link building at all, only a few right enough, however these keywords are nowhere to be seen in the SERPs, why would Google penalize these keywords if it was Penguin 1.1? Some keywords are still ranking, but overall very poor.

Found this article: http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/beginners-guide-to-mobile-seo-11793  maybe it will help...

Sorry Robert, that site was just an example. If you click here We should be listed no.2 for hot flushes Domain is avogel

Hi Ben, Thanks for the link, very good read. I also read this: Clearly, after Panda 3.3, Google implemented some sort of threshold for what they feel is an appropriate ratio of anchor text that any website should have. Websites with a higher ratio than this threshold saw the value of all of those links completely discounted — it was as if they didn’t exist anymore On http://www.audiencebloom.com/2012/04/how-to-recover-your-rankings-after-panda-3-3-3-4-3-5-or-penguin-delete-or-dilute/ Does this mean going back to these websites where the exact match anchor text is a changing it to lets say phrase or brand will not make any difference?

Unfortunately your example is actually a good method and lots use it. If you don't want to take that route you can leave the article link free, and place it in the byline which will make it look less spammy. Like Craig said though don't generate a 100 guest posts all with the same anchor text 'car insurance', you need to mix it up, some with the keyword some with your brand name, some which are close to your target term.

Try this tag instead since you are going to use exactly the same content on your website – _However, you are free to set Google Cross domain canonical. For more information - _ _http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/credit-where-credit-is-due.html_

Hi Matt, Indeed, a few months ago I sent a paragraph of text by email to be changed on that article, and no doubt this is the reason why. I have had it removed in the last 10 minutes or so, just for piece of mind. Thanks for clarifying the issue.

At a domain level (and exact maths aside), yes. However at a page level (i.e within an article), then the link juice is evenly distributed across the links on the page. It gets complicated when the other link strength factors are brought into it. For example if there were two links on a page, one in the article and one in the page footer. The link juice would be distributed 50/50, however the footer link wouldn't be given the same importance and strength as the one in the article. This goes for your links in the article too. Although the link juice will be spread evenly, there are still other ranking factors that skew the importance of the links, such as the order and placement. So the number of links you have in the article effects the PageRank distribution, but there are many other factors surrounding links. The main one that will effect this issue is the diminishing returns of links to the same website (e.g yours). So if you have 4 links on a page they might get the PageRank spread evenly at 25% each, however this doesn't mean that they will all carry the same weight and value to your pages they are landing at. Cheers

The above sounds a bit spammy, I agree.... I hope that my competitors are signing up for this.  I hope that they all buy six-packs. however the success they have had with such activity with other websites has been fantastic. lol.... Right!  The penguins are loving it..  

At the very least, I would write a new unique set of copy for the product. Let them all share this new copy and compete against each other. Your original copy will be unique and likely keep you high in the rankings. Also, perhaps see if they will link their pages back to your site 'for more information.' *small edit for clarification