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.
Are there any SEO benefits changing the default home page filename (index.htm) to a keyword rich filename
-
II'm a newbie. I have a website using the default home page filename: index.htm. I have total control over the web server. I was wondering whether I can get any SEO improvements for my main keyword if I change the default filename with a filename that contains the main keyword, like our-main-product.htm (doing the 301 redirect and changing the server search order, of course)?
-
Thasnk you so much for your help, Paul.
-
Hey Oscar - my second language is French and I couldn't possibly have asked the question in my other language as well as you have here, so don't worry about the language issue at all!
For your question about changing the index.htm to something with a keyword: no, that would have absolutely no effect. As long as the redirect was with a 301 code, the search engines and the visitors will never know that page even exists. That's the whole purpose of the 301-redirect. it makes that page invisible to the search engines.
I would also strongly advise not to switch to a keyword-rich subdomain. that's just asking for a lot of headaches and problems in the future.
What you are suggesting here is trying to create what is called and Exact Match Domain (EMD), meaning the title of your domain matches the keyword you are trying to rank for. The value of these has recently been lowered by Google anyway, and as I say, doing it using a subdomain will cause all kinds of hassles, not to mention confusion for your users.
If I were you, the area i would be focusing most of my efforts would be on building and earning links form other websites. At the moment, you essentially only have one other domain linking to you.
In addition, trying to rank with a very competitive general term like impresión digital will be very difficult for a new site. Better to use terms like impresión digital en Chihuahua and others related to where you offer your services. This is assuming that most of your customers are fairly local, not from all over the Internet.
Hope that answers your question? If not, be sure to let me know.
Paul
-
Hi Paul:
I already got rid of the index.htm name appearing in the url homepage, and also I have all the needed 301 redirects for the mydomain.com, mydomain.com.mx and mydomain.mx pointing to www.grafimart.com. Please, take alook at: www.grafimart.com
What I really want to know is whether I can get some SEO benefit if I change the index.htm main home page filename for my main keyword: impresion-digital.htm, even when it is not to be shown to the users. In other words: Does the google bots consider as a valid keyword the index page name, even when it is not shown?
http://www.grafimart.com/impresion-digital.htm
instead of:
http://www.grafimart.com/index.htm
I´m thinking on this based on the fact that my domain name is a branded name and I find difficult to get better SEO for my main page using a subdomain like
(impresion-digital.grafimart.com)
Hope you can understand my poorly written english.
Oscar
-
Google weights most of its SEO 'strength' to the actual domain name iteself - and even then, from left to right i.e the further right your main keyword is, the less juice it will get.
However, if you have relevant content on the page and name the page accordingly then you are making what is called an 'seo friendly' URL. Many people who use Wordpress for example, change their permalinks to change the url from something like mysite.com/p1 to mysite.com/keyword - which WILL make a difference, albeit not a huge one.
So if it's straightforward for you to do so, then by all means do it. Outside of SEO it will help your visitors better understand what the page is about, and will look a lot prettier in the SERPs too.Also, rather than 301'ing each page, you may be able to change the structure of your permalinks within your .htaccess file so that it will happen automatically e.g by naming the file with the title of your page or postname.
Hope this helps...
-
What you actually want to do is get rid of that index.htm address for your home page altogether, Oscar. You want your visitors to only be able to reach your homepage at one URL. This means you need to use 301 rewrites to make your /index.htm page redirect to your primary domain name. (E.g. the website name with no filename after it.)
You also want to make sure that you have chosen between www.youdomain.com and yourdomain.com (without the www) as the primary address, and rewritten the other one to point to the primary. This is called canonicalisation of the home page. The search engines see each of those addresses as completely different pages because they have different URLs - even though they display the same page. As a result, they'll be considered duplicate content and will effectively be competing against each other.
There are many questions here in Q&A that explain how to do these kind of redirects. Let us know if you can't find one that works for you.
Hope that helps?
Paul
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
-
What is the safest way to redirect for best SEO benefits?
What is the safest way to redirect for best SEO benefits? Example: loodgieter-aanhuis.nl -> loodgieters-ambacht.nl Does someone have any technical information on how to (root) redirect for best SEO practices?
On-Page Optimization | | hans-keeren0 -
Ranking dropped after change single page url, should I change it back?
I was making updates to the content on the following page, and a few days later dropped from #2 SERP ranking to 50+. Things I checked: Yes, 301 redirect was implemented right away. After publishing, I manually requested indexing in search console. Right after publishing I re-submitted the sitemap manually and Google said they had not crawled it in 9 days. My question: should I change the URL back to the old one, or give it a little more time (especially since I re-submitted sitemap) Original URL: https://www.travelinsurancereview.net/plans/travel-medical/ New URL: https://www.travelinsurancereview.net/plans/travel-medical-insurance/
On-Page Optimization | | DamianTysdal0 -
Does it hurt SEO to build landing pages in HubSpot instead of directly in Word Press?
Our team's website is built in Word Press, but we use Hub Spot as our CRM. We are trying to determine if building landing pages in Hub Spot is going to hurt our SEO efforts and if it's better to build directly on Word Press.
On-Page Optimization | | MerlinLaw0 -
How can a page rank for keywords that it does not have on it?
I have a client that is ranking in the top 10 for several keywords on their homepage. Their site has no purposeful SEO in it, there is barely any text on the homepage at all and none of the text are the keywords it is ranking for.
On-Page Optimization | | woodchuckarts2 -
Google Console returning 0 pages as being indexed
HI there, I submitted my site notebuster.net to Search Console over a month ago and it is showing 0 pages as being indexed under the index status report. I know this isn't right as I can see that in google alone by typing in (site:notebusters.net) there are 113 pages indexed. Any idea why this might be? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | CosiCrawley0 -
Should I optimize my home-page or a sub-page for my most important keyword
Quick question: When choosing the most important keyword set that I would like to rank for, would I be better off optimizing my homepage, or a sub page for this keyword. My thinking goes as follows: The homepage (IE www.mysite.com) naturally has more backlinks and thus a better Google Page Rank. However, there are certain things I could do to a subpage (IE www.mysite.com/green-widgets-los-angeles ) that I wouldn't want to do to the homepage, which might be more "optimal" overall. Option C, I suppose, would be to optimize both the homepage, and a single sub-page, which is seeming like a pretty good solution, but I have been told that having multiple pages optimized for the same keywords might "confuse" search engines. Would love any insight on this!
On-Page Optimization | | Jacob_A2 -
How many keywords max can I optimize each page for?
I don't want to over optimize by doing 1 keyword per 1 page, but then if I do more, seomoz on-page tool report doesn't give an A grade for each keyword I optimize. I usually optimize for max 3 keywords that are very closely related, meaning they use the same words. Ex. dentist los angeles, los angeles dentist, dentist in los angeles Am I on the right track or what's your recommendation? Should I create different landing pages for each keyword?
On-Page Optimization | | sub90900 -
Footer link to home page?
Quick question - is it a best practice to add a footer link on each page of a website that points back to your home page, with the anchor text being your official brand name?
On-Page Optimization | | Bandicoot0