How can I rebuild this page with exact permalink?

I want to rebuild an old page URL with wordpress to preserve the link juice as the page still has high authority and many domains pointing to it.

The URL looks like this: .com/viewer.php?mp=&md=viewer&page=1

I'm able to create the /viewer.php part using the custom permalinks plugin but the end part of "?mp=&md=viewer&page=1" I cannot.

Is there a way to recreate this full URL?

Not sure what you are asking.. if you are able to create the viewer.php, it should be a 200 with the query strings as well (unless you play with the wordpress's default query strings e.g. q=something).. What response do you get when you add those query strings to your URL? 200 or 404?

Edit: I think I know why it is happening. Can u paste the particular rule you have used in your permalink plugin/htaccess?

Instead of rebuilding the above URL, a simple thing which you can do is install a wordpress plugin to 301 redirect any old page to a new page/post/homepage you like. You can also do this via .htaccess

If you change only a little bit of your url even though it will show 404.

Instead of wasting time to recreate the url. Just 301 redirect it to the new page.

But I don't get it why you want to recreate the url? If its ranking and have links towards it then why jinx it at all?!!

Gogol said:

Not sure what you are asking.. if you are able to create the viewer.php, it should be a 200 with the query strings as well (unless you play with the wordpress's default query strings e.g. q=something).. What response do you get when you add those query strings to your URL? 200 or 404?

Edit: I think I know why it is happening. Can u paste the particular rule you have used in your permalink plugin/htaccess?

Click to expand...

After I created the viewer.php permalink, the old URL with the query strings seems to just redirect to the new viewer.php page. I think this actually is good enough so I will keep how it is.

ridersark said:

Instead of rebuilding the above URL, a simple thing which you can do is install a wordpress plugin to 301 redirect any old page to a new page/post/homepage you like. You can also do this via .htaccess

Click to expand...

seomotionz said:

If you change only a little bit of your url even though it will show 404.

Instead of wasting time to recreate the url. Just 301 redirect it to the new page.

But I don't get it why you want to recreate the url? If its ranking and have links towards it then why jinx it at all?!!

Click to expand...

Don't you think link juice is lost when you don't rebuild the old URL and and just 301 the broken 404 page? I feel like more juice is passed by rebuilding the page first and then 301 to any inner page from there. I've also heard 301 to homepage passes no juice as well. I guess this is all just theory though.

Moto801 said:

Don't you think link juice is lost when you don't rebuild the old URL and and just 301 the broken 404 page? I feel like more juice is passed by rebuilding the page first and then 301 to any inner page from there. I've also heard 301 to homepage passes no juice as well. I guess this is all just theory though.

Click to expand...

Don't you worry about link juice. If you properly 301 redirect them then nothing is lost. I have seen entire sites getting redirected to a new one so that's not the issue here. What you should focus on is doing the redirect correctly. It may seem its a little work but it needs undivided attention.