Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Homepage Index vs Home vs Default?
-
Should your home page be www.yoursite.com/index.htm or home.htm or default.htm on an apache server? Someone asked me this, and I have no idea. On our wordpress site, I have never even seen this come up, but according to my friend, every homepage HAS to be one of those three. So my question is which one is best for an apache server site AND does it actually have to be one of those three?
Thanks,
Ruben
-
Thanks so much! I really appreciate the insight.
Ruben
-
If you want more information yes Apache server does make
Most Apache web servers have set the following pages as the default page with a directory.
default.htm default.html index.htm index.html index.php
If using WordPress you could see index.php because WordPress
Uses a PHP Database regardless of what your friend told you ideally you should have
Properly 301 redirected static links when talking about links that are going to be seen by Google.
this
Means WordPress websites ideally should not contain publicly visible index file of any kind.
To cut to the chase I have cited this response from Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web spam team. to Yoast
Referenced from http://yoast.com/wordpress-seo-url-permalink/
I emailed Matt and asked whether it makes sense to add .html for systems like WordPress. His response:
In general I wouldn’t. My WP has urls like http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/remove-result/ and that’s pretty ideal.
So. Case closed.
Should I add .html to my permalink structure?
A good collection of resources. Are posted as links below this line.
Use Yoast http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/
Is an excellent source of WordPress knowledge I strongly recommend using the Yoast WordPress seo tool the reason a side from being one of the very best Word press plug-ins that enhance your Word press site this one uses
http://yoast.com/change-wordpress-permalink-structure/
http://yoast.com/wp-content/permalink-helper.php
If you need to make changes to your link structure A great
resource I understand redirects is the link under this line
http://24ways.org/2013/url-rewriting-for-the-fearful/
If you need to redirect an index tag using Nginx
http://moz.com/blog/htaccess-file-snippets-for-seos
http://codex.wordpress.org/Linking_Posts_Pages_and_Categories
-
Merry Christmas,
Ruben
Your friend is speaking about a 100% HTML site and the answer is your site should not end using
www.yoursite.com/index.htm or home.htm or default.htm
Using Word press your site should end in www.yoursite.com or www.yoursite.com/
Some people when they ring there site over from an HTML static site to WordPress they might find a parma links
http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks
If you do this and 301 redirect any links that would be changed by using WordPress to the new Permalink structure shown below or if you feel like using one of the others which I recommend against you may. However most sites are best served using the settings below.
Sincerely,
Thomas
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
My site is showing indexed in search console but not appearing in Serps
hi, i have recently made sites.google site and submitted to search console but when I copy paste in google , its not appearing
Algorithm Updates | | alan-shultis0 -
Log-in page ranking instead of homepage due to high traffic on login page! How to avoid?
Hi all, Our log-in page is ranking in SERP instead of homepage and some times both pages rank for the primary keyword we targeted. We have even dropped. I am looking for a solution for this. Three points here to consider is: Our log-in page is the most visited page and landing page on the website. Even there is the primary keyword in this page or not; same scenario continues Log-in page is the first link bots touch when they crawling any page of our website as log-in page is linked on top navigation menu If we move login page to sub-domain, will it works? I am worrying that we loose so much traffic to our website which will be taken away from log-in page sub domain Please guide with your valuable suggestions. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Numbers vs #'s For Blog Titles
For your blog post titles, is it "better" to use numbers or write them out? For example, 3 Things I love About People Answering My Constant Questions or Three Things I Love About People Answering My Constant Questions? I could see this being like the attorney/lawyer, ecommerce/e-commerce and therefore not a big deal. But, I also thought you should avoid using #'s in your url's. Any thoughts, Ruben
Algorithm Updates | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Wistia vs. YouTube
Hello, Mozzers! Sorry if I've missed a thread on this, but I didn't find anything after searching for a while... I've used Wistia for years - LOVE the service and the company! Had great luck getting Rich Snippets, ranked well... until the recent Google change. Now all of my Wistia thumbnails have disappeared (though my rankings have stayed strong, thank goodness!) M question is, does it make sense to now embed YouTube videos on our site, and to create a video sitemap with those pages, with the hope that Google will rank the page better than it otherwise would have, knowing that there is valuable (video) content on the page? This is new videos, I'm not thinking of replacing my Wistia videos at this time. I'll probably need to clarify as I see your responses, since this is a tricky set of interrelated decisions. Thanks for any thoughts that anyone may have! 🙂 ~ Scott
Algorithm Updates | | measurableROI1 -
Is it possible that Google may have erroneous indexing dates?
I am consulting someone for a problem related to copied content. Both sites in question are WordPress (self hosted) sites. The "good" site publishes a post. The "bad" site copies the post (without even removing all internal links to the "good" site) a few days after. On both websites it is obvious the publishing date of the posts, and it is clear that the "bad" site publishes the posts days later. The content thief doesn't even bother to fake the publishing date. The owner of the "good" site wants to have all the proofs needed before acting against the content thief. So I suggested him to also check in Google the dates the various pages were indexed using Search Tools -> Custom Range in order to have the indexing date displayed next to the search results. For all of the copied pages the indexing dates also prove the "bad" site published the content days after the "good" site, but there are 2 exceptions for the very 2 first posts copied. First post:
Algorithm Updates | | SorinaDascalu
On the "good" website it was published on 30 January 2013
On the "bad" website it was published on 26 February 2013
In Google search both show up indexed on 30 January 2013! Second post:
On the "good" website it was published on 20 March 2013
On the "bad" website it was published on 10 May 2013
In Google search both show up indexed on 20 March 2013! Is it possible to be an error in the date shown in Google search results? I also asked for help on Google Webmaster forums but there the discussion shifted to "who copied the content" and "file a DMCA complain". So I want to be sure my question is better understood here.
It is not about who published the content first or how to take down the copied content, I am just asking if anybody else noticed this strange thing with Google indexing dates. How is it possible for Google search results to display an indexing date previous to the date the article copy was published and exactly the same date that the original article was published and indexed?0 -
Hyphens vs Underscores
I am optimizing a site which uses underscores rather than hyphens as word separators (such_as_this.php vs. such-as-this.php). Most of these pages have been around since 2007, and I am hesitant to just redirect to a new page because I am worried it will cause the rankings to slip. Would you recommend changing the file names to be in hyphenated format and place 301 redirects on the pages with underscores, or stick with the existing pages? Is there anything else that would work better? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | BluespaceCreative1 -
Plural vs non-plural domain name
I'm sure this question has been answered and asked a 1,000 different ways but what would be the best domain name to use in the long term (2 years +)? The plural versions (examples.com) which has a decent domain authority and is ranking 1st in Google search results yet has less search volume or the singular version (example.com) that has no current SEO value for the search term that we'd like to target however the singular version of the keyword has a much higher search volume? so basically will it be better to have the exact match that has more volume or the plural form that has better rankings after 2 years of doing SEO for each domain? My guess is that using (examples.com) with the better domain authority and tightening the grip on its dominance in Google will still be more effective than having the exact match domain with more search volume for that keyword while performing the same amount of SEO even after two years. Any suggestions?
Algorithm Updates | | ydop0 -
Home page replaced by subpage in google SERP (good or bad)
SInce Panda, We have seen our home page drop from #2 in google.ie serp to page 3 but it has been replaced in the same position @#2 by our relevent sub page for the keyword that we ranked#2 for. Is this a good or bad thing from and seo point of view and is it better to have deep pages show in serp rather than the homepage of a site and what is the best line of action from here in relation to seo. Is it best to work on subpage or home page for that keyword and should link building for that phrase be directed towards the subpage or the homepage as the subpage is obviously more relevent in googles eyes for the search term. It is clear that all areas of the site should be looked at in relation to link building and deep links etc but now that google is obviously looking at relevancy very closely should all campaigns be sectioned into relevent content managed sections and the site likewise and treated on an individual basis. Any help that you may have would be very welcome. Paul
Algorithm Updates | | mcintyr0