Redirect question for site going from html to php

[Xurion]

I have a site at the moment that is fully html and now it has reached over 250 pages it becomes a real pain to have to do a site-wide change. So i'm going to develop a basic php include site to help with the changes to menus etc.

All search engines have the pages listed as .html extensions, and if I change it to a .php extension site, the links from the search pages will become broken. So naturally, my question is what is the best redirect to use? I need one that redirects the user and also redirects the search engine bots (if its possible)

Thanks in advance

Xur

[ToonMariner]

you need to look at teh mod re_write rules if you wish to prevent these links going dead.

If i were you I would continue with your updating to get the site php driven - even a cms may help!

check out mod-write to redirect your old pages to new urls and get the site indexed once more ?(ps i learnt about mod_rewrite for friendly urls - apparantly bots index them buch better than urls like ?action=this&mode=that)