index.html to index.php ???

[SanDiego]

If I were to change the index page of my site from html to php but leave everything the same (at first), do you think I could lose PR / serps / or anything else?
Every link (that I know of) to the page is to the domain name..... all internal one as well....

[ResaleBroker]

If you change the file extension then you have a new URL. This new URL will have its own PageRank.

Since PageRank is a factor in Google's Algo for determining SERPs I would say "Yes" that would have a impact.

[SanDiego]

But it's the domain I'd thought.. (this is the problem I am having..lol)
see, I took a secondary site I have (pr3) and changed it's index.html file to index.php and then cleared my cache memory and typed it in again (the domain) and the PR is still there.... (toolbar).. but when i type in domain.com/index.php it is PR0 and the retype index.html (no page now) and you get PR3 again... but the domain is still PR3 when you don't specify a file.. ??

I just dont want to mess up anything I have now with my main site...So i figured I'd ask here before jumping in on recoding stuff....

[ResaleBroker]

As long as you are pointing to the "Domain" then file extension will not matter. As soon as you point to a "Page" then file extensions come into play.

This is just another reason why links should point to the domain and not the index page.

[SanDiego]

So with all my links pointed to my domain.. could it be expected that a file extention change would NOT change PR/serps of the front page?

[ResaleBroker]

So with all my links pointed to my domain.. could it be expected that a file extention change would NOT change PR/serps of the front page?

I don't see a problem.

[SanDiego]

Thanks for the opinion Jeffery! Appreciated

[ResaleBroker]

Rustin, after reading this thread again I realized you did mention "Domain." Sorry about that.

[webmaster]

Rustin, I am assuming you want to do this so that you can use php coding on your site. Instead of actually changing the extensions the SE's see put this in your .htaccess file

RewriteRule ^(.*).html $1.php [L]

This will allow you to save files as file.php but link to them as file.html that way there is no PR loss etc, I do this on www.seo-guy.com every .html is actually a .php http://www.seo-guy.com/tutorial.html is saved as tutorial.php for instance

[SanDiego]

Yeah, I don't care what they say about you.. You're a genius!