I've been using SSI on my site for two years now (I dread it now), and so far it has worked well. But now I'm planning on doing some major upgrades (example: Skin chooser) and for that I need the functionality that PHP provides (i.e. cookies, sessions, etc.). But the problem is that I'm happy with my ratings in Google. If I change my .shtml files into .php I will loose many rankings because of that. What I need is a way to not have to change any file names but still get the function PHP provides..

The two ways I thought of having this done is 1) Redirect all my .shtml files into the .php files. But I've many files and it would be a nightmare. 2) Include PHP files into the SSI using <!--exec cgi=file.php--> I tried it and it seems to work (I tried including a poll into a blank HTML file. I put the PHP code required to include the poll into a php file, than included that php file into an SSI file), but it requires tweaking to PHP scripts and I'm not sure if it will work everytime..

Is there any other way I can do this? And if I were to rename all my .shtml files will I loose rank on Google et al?

Thank you.

You could simply set your .shtml to parse as PHP.

Add .shtml to the AddHandler line for php in .htaccess or httpd.cfg

But will it slow down the server and/or use a lot of bandwith?

Don't think it will make a difference...?

It does add a small overhead, but unless you are talking about thousands of connections an hour it is insignificant in the overall picture.

Well as of last count I have about 200-300 hits daily and about 100 pages with the .shtml extensions (it will grow of course) which I need parsed. So will it make a difference?

And lastly two more questions: What is the exact code to add to the .htaccess file? And secondly is there any way I can test this out in one directory before I apply it to the root. Like for example I want to have a dir called www.site.com/testing and any file placed in testing will have this parsing thing apply but no other file. Than when I feel I've tested enough I want it to apply to the whole site. Is it possible?

I *think*...

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .shtml