Technology has come a long way in 10 years.
In 2001, the internet bubble had already burst and some speculated that it would not last much longer. At that time, very few people had a website running with databases. The free PHP programming language that is so ubiquitous today was in its infancy back then. The few lucky websites with content management systems were mostly programmed in Pearl or expensive ASP and ColdFusion.
In 2001, if you wanted a website you had to find the smartest person you knew and pay them a lot of money to create one for you. Programmers also didn't make website management easy for you.
We've come a long way since Palm Pilots, clunky websites and search engines like MetaCrawler and AltaVista. Technology is a lot friendlier now, and even Grandma is able to send email, talk on her cell phone and surf the web at the same time. If you still have trouble doing these 3 things simultaneously, we recommend asking your own grandma for directions.
So what does this little stroll down memory lane have to do with today's Golden Nugget?
If you were lucky enough to have a database website built for you between 2001 and 2006, it's probably not a very good system. Most likely, it's not very user friendly and was created from a programmer's point of view that they understand, but leaves you clueless.
Eventually you will need to upgrade your website to a new content management system. It doesn't matter if your website is 1 year old, 5 years old or 10 years old, you simply will need to upgrade as technology changes. Just like you trade in your car every few years for a better one, you eventually need to trade in the website software.
When that day comes there are two things you need to request of your web programmer:
1. Maintain the same exact web page names and directory structure.
2. Or correctly redirect all the old URLs to the corresponding new pages.
Those two points are absolutely paramount. If you get that wrong, you will lose all the years of link building and off-page search engine optimization, which means those 10,000 visitors per month will suddenly vanish, and with them all your sales.
Please don't simply trust your web programmer to do #2 correctly; you have to check to make sure they did it.
It's your business and a bad programmer and bad content management system could put you out of business overnight, so be careful in what you decide or hire a consultant to help you make the right choice.
