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.
Correct linking to the /index of a site and subfolders: what's the best practice? link to: domain.com/ or domain.com/index.html ?
-
Dear all,
starting with my .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.inlinear.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://inlinear.com/$1 [R=301,L]RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.html
RewriteRule ^(.)index.html$ http://inlinear.com/ [R=301,L]1. I redirect all URL-requests with www. to the non www-version...
2. all requests with "index.html" will be redirected to "domain.com/"My questions are:
A) When linking from a page to my frontpage (home) the best practice is?: "http://domain.com/" the best and NOT: "http://domain.com/index.php"
B) When linking to the index of a subfolder "http://domain.com/products/index.php" I should link also to: "http://domain.com/products/" and not put also the index.php..., right?
C) When I define the canonical ULR, should I also define it just: "http://domain.com/products/" or in this case I should link to the definite file: "http://domain.com/products**/index.php**"
Is A) B) the best practice? and C) ?
Thanks for all replies!
Holger -
I think you have it correct there. I always like to end in a slash for index pages
http://inlinear.com/ - this is your home index page
http://inlinear.com/products/ - this is your index page for the /products/ folder/group
http://inlinear.com/products/page.php - this is a page within the /products/folder/group.
Hardly anyone ever sets up index web pages like index.php or index.htm anymore, they are really not needed as they just make the URL longer. End in the slash and make sure that you are consistent with ending with that slash (vs dropping it off) when you link to your index pages.
You would need to test the script you mention that rewrites the URL. It looks like it is making sure that the index page ends in a slash, but I could be wrong.
Side story - I have had a CMS that uses http://inlinear.com/products as the index page for http://inlinear.com/products/ and this creates all kinds of issues
-
Most people are used to not having an index page and the URL simply ending in a slash. So even if you had a non slashed version as your index page, people would link to the slash and then you have to setup 301s to fix that. Otherwise you end up with all kinds of duplicate page issues.
-
I know Google Analytics looks at the slashes to group your content into reports.
So the example index page of http://inlinear.com/products
would NOT be included in reports with all the pages in the /products/ group
e.g. http://inlinear.com/products/page.php
http://inlinear.com/products/anotherpage.php
as /products is not "within" /products/ You then have a report on /products/ that leaves out the index page and this is normally your most important page!
Good luck!
-
-
Thank you, but in practice how does it work without file-extension?
As I understood its fine if I put the following link to link on my homepage-index:
http://inlinear.com/ <--- without anything...
As well when I link to the products page:
http://inlinear.com/products/ <--- again without anything (index.php)
But in case of a specific page for example in the products-folder:
http://inlinear.com/products/my-product-1.php <--- how can I live without extension?
I googled and found this .htaccess code. Seems it takes away .php and ads a "/"... is this the best practice?:
Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
Turn mod_rewrite on
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /Adding a trailing slash
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$
RewriteRule . %{REQUEST_URI}/ [L,R=301]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*?)/?$ /$1.php [L]Is this what you mean?
-
Best practice for all three cases is to never use the file extensions. You should never link to the file extension names, and make sure in your htaccess file that you dont use the file extensions for any reason moving forward. Why?
1. Lets say you decide to re-do your site and it goes from PHP to another language like ASP or something. You would have to redirect your entire site with file extensions and would shoot yourself in the foot with SEO, traffic and anything else. By not using file extensions, you give yourself the flexibility down the road and you can maintain a constant url structure.
2. Indexing may or may not use the file extensions depending on your htaccess/server settings. You would then essentially be running into duplicate content pages and issues, and thereby negatively affecting your site. Plus, it will dilute your individual page authority.
As a side note, just be consistent with your internal linking. Whether you use relative links or not - some discussion can be had around that. But pick a route and go with it, just as long as you dont use the file extensions
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
-
Problem with Yoast not seeing any of this website's text/content
Hi, My client has a new WordPress site http://www.londonavsolutions.co.uk/ and they have installed the Yoast Premium SEO plug-in. They are having issues with getting the lights to go green and the main problem is that on most pages Yoast does not see any words/content – although there are plenty of words on the pages. Other tools can see the words, however Yoast is struggling to find any and gives the following message:- Bad SEO score. The text contains 0 words. This is far below the recommended minimum of 300 words. Add more content that is relevant for the topic. Readability - You have far too little content. Please add some content to enable a good analysis. They have contacted the website developer who says that there is nothing wrong, but they are frustrated that they cannot use the Yoast tools themselves because of this issue, plus Yoast are offering no support with the issue. I hope that one of you guys has seen this problem before, or can spot a problem with the way the site has been built and can perhaps shed some light on the problem. I didn't build the site myself so won't be offended if you spot problems with it. Thanks in advance, Ben
Technical SEO | | bendyman0 -
Is it better to use XXX.com or XXX.com/index.html as canonical page
Is it better to use 301 redirects or canonical page? I suspect canonical is easier. The question is, which is the best canonical page, YYY.com or YYY.com/indexhtml? I assume YYY.com, since there will be many other pages such as YYY.com/info.html, YYY.com/services.html, etc.
Technical SEO | | Nanook10 -
Disallow: /404/ - Best Practice?
Hello Moz Community, My developer has added this to my robots.txt file: Disallow: /404/ Is this considered good practice in the world of SEO? Would you do it with your clients? I feel he has great development knowledge but isn't too well versed in SEO. Thank you in advanced, Nico.
Technical SEO | | niconico1011 -
How Does Google's "index" find the location of pages in the "page directory" to return?
This is my understanding of how Google's search works, and I am unsure about one thing in specific: Google continuously crawls websites and stores each page it finds (let's call it "page directory") Google's "page directory" is a cache so it isn't the "live" version of the page Google has separate storage called "the index" which contains all the keywords searched. These keywords in "the index" point to the pages in the "page directory" that contain the same keywords. When someone searches a keyword, that keyword is accessed in the "index" and returns all relevant pages in the "page directory" These returned pages are given ranks based on the algorithm The one part I'm unsure of is how Google's "index" knows the location of relevant pages in the "page directory". The keyword entries in the "index" point to the "page directory" somehow. I'm thinking each page has a url in the "page directory", and the entries in the "index" contain these urls. Since Google's "page directory" is a cache, would the urls be the same as the live website (and would the keywords in the "index" point to these urls)? For example if webpage is found at wwww.website.com/page1, would the "page directory" store this page under that url in Google's cache? The reason I want to discuss this is to know the effects of changing a pages url by understanding how the search process works better.
Technical SEO | | reidsteven750 -
Robots.txt to disallow /index.php/ path
Hi SEOmoz, I have a problem with my Joomla site (yeah - me too!). I get a large amount of /index.php/ urls despite using a program to handle these issues. The URLs cause indexation errors with google (404). Now, I fixed this issue once before, but the problem persist. So I thought, instead of wasting more time, couldnt I just disallow all paths containing /index.php/ ?. I don't use that extension, but would it cause me any problems from an SEO perspective? How do I disallow all index.php's? Is it a simple: Disallow: /index.php/
Technical SEO | | Mikkehl0 -
How does Google find /feed/ at the end of all pages on my site?
Hi! In Google Webmaster Tools I find *.../feed/ as a 404 page in crawl errors. The problem is that none of these pages exist and they have no inbound links (except the start page). FYI, it´s a wordpress site. Example: www.mysite.com/subpage1/feed/ www.mysite.com/subpage2/feed/ www.mysite.com/subpage3/feed/ etc Does Google search for /feed/ by default or why do I keep getting these 404´s every day?
Technical SEO | | Vivamedia0 -
Merging several sites into one - best practice
I had 2 sites on the web (www.physicseditor.de, www.texutrepacker.com) and decided to move them all under one single domain (www.codeandweb.com) Both sites were ranking very good for several keywords. I not redirected the most important pages from the old domains with a 301 redirect to the new subpages (www.texturepacker.com => www.codeandweb.com/texturepacker) Google still delivers the old domains but the redirect take people directly to the new content. I've already submitted the new site map to google webmaster tools. Pages are already in the index but do not really show up in the search results. How long does it take until google accepts the new domain and delivers the new content in the search results? Was it ok what I did? Or is there some room for improvement? SeoMoz will of course not find any information about the new page since it is not yet directly linked in google. But I can't get ranking information for the "old" pages since SeoMoz tells me that it can't crawl the old domains....
Technical SEO | | gossi740 -
.com or .co.uk in UK index? but the .com has higher domain authority...
Hi there i have a .com and a .co.uk for a site that has been around a while. However not much seo has been done on it, i was wonderign do i continue to optimise for the .com or switch to the .co.uk to rank in Google UK index for various search terms. .COM = 40 domain authority .CO.UK - 10 domain authority. Let the debate start 🙂
Technical SEO | | pauledwards0