Webpage redirection help

[howard.a.s]

I currently have a Wordpress website which is soon to be taken down and replaced by a near identical website constructed entirely in HTML and PHP. The Wordpress version of the website has been operational for roughly 18 months during which time Google has cateloged its pages and included them in search listings. When I change over to the new HTML/PHP version I am concerned that when someone clicks on a Google search listing for my website that it will return a page not found message, as under Wordpress all my pages end without a file extension, whereas the new sites pages will always end with a .html or .php.

Examples:

Wordpress site - http://www.mysite.com/contact

New site - http://www.mysite.com/contact.html

Wordpress site - http://www.mysite.com/links

New site - http://www.mysite.com/links.html

Is there any way that I can include some form of document on the we server that hosts my web site instructing the browser to look for my new pages, perhaps something like: "when http://www.mysite.com/contact redirect to http://www.mysite.com/contact.html". Obviously I'd need to have the document include all my old and new pages urls.

I realize I could just resubmit a sitemap for my website to all major search engines and have them update listings for my site as they appear in the search listings, but when I've tried this in the past sometimes nothing happens for months, if ever.

Any constructive suggestions welcome.

 

[KomputerKid]

As long as there's an index.html or index.php file in the folder it should open up. by just adding the name of the folder.

Example:

http://www.mysite.com/

If there's an index.html file in the main directory you don't have to type in index.html

The same is true for links, contact or whatever. If you title your page index.html and upload it to the appropriate folder you can just add the folder name and it'll open. I hope you understand what I mean.

 

[colinsp]

You need to use 301 redirects. You can do this in htaccess.

Use something like this http://www.rapidtables.com/web/tools/redirect-generator.htm if you don't know how to DIY.