Google rankings when going from html to xml

[Don]

I am translating a large (1,100 webpage) website from xhtml to xml,
which will change the file extensions from .html to .xml
How can I keep my excellent Google page rankings if my xhtml webpages
are replaced by xml webpages?

 

[Stefan Ram]

I am translating a large (1,100 webpage) website from xhtml to xml,
which will change the file extensions from .html to .xml

This will not change the URI ending.

It is not required for the URI of an XHTML-resource or an
XML-resource to end in ".xml" or not to end in ".html".

 

[Don]

Are you suggesting that I keep my old URIs so that the new xml file
then has an html extension?

 

[Stefan Ram]

Are you suggesting that I keep my old URIs so that the new xml
file then has an html extension?

As far as I know, this would be in accordance with all
specifications. It might be possible, that individual clients
could use the URI-ending to identify the resource type - I am
not aware of such clients. However, problems are posssible.

In order to keep the URI, I would even keep the ".html"
ending, when changing the resource to JPEG or PDF, to me,
".html" has no meaning or significance in this regard
whatsoever. A ".html" ending might be part of a URI for
historical reasons.

See also:

http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI

 

[Andrzej Adam Filip]

I am translating a large (1,100 webpage) website from xhtml to xml,
which will change the file extensions from .html to .xml
How can I keep my excellent Google page rankings if my xhtml webpages
are replaced by xml webpages?

Have you considered keeping html version (generated by xslt from xml)?

You can put link to alternative format on every page and map
http://your.site/ to page in format of your choice e.g. based on web
browser type.

 

[Andy Dingley]

I am translating a large (1,100 webpage) website from xhtml to xml,
_WHY_?!

which will change the file extensions from .html to .xml

There are no file extensions on the web. There are URIs, and these may
contain character strings that map onto file extensions stored on a
server. However these are not a fundamental part of the "web experience"
via HTTP and any competent web crawler (including GoogleBot) won;t care
about them.

How can I keep my excellent Google page rankings

You can't - you can't make XML web pages. "The web" uses HTML. Even if
you can make "XML pages" work for some obscure combination of specific
browsers and dependencies on client-side technologies, this is no longer
"a web page" by any useful meaning of the term.

You're throwing away wide-audience web standards and usefulness. Google
shoudl dump you, and rightfully so.